Warning: this post is just a long play-by-play of my vacation weekend. May cause disinterest or confusion.
What a wonderfully fantastic weekend. On Thursday evening Josh and I boarded a plane together for the first time, headed to one of my favorite places: Colorado. I have intensely missed Colorado since I moved back to Los Angeles over a year and a half ago. Luckily, I still have several close friends who have either remained in Boulder or moved to Denver or Frisco. Earlier this past summer, my group of 6 sistas from college had a four day reunion weekend, in honor of Megan & Emily's birthdays. It was then that I vowed to return to Colorado once a year to visit my college town or spend some time in the mountains... "going home" I call it, since I grew far fonder of that environment and way of life during the 4+ years I lived there, than I am now of LA.
Well, this year I got lucky and made it back to Colorful Colorado for a second time within 4 months (I can't believe my girls' reunion was almost four months ago! Oh how time flies). The occasion - as if I need one - was The Great American Beer Festival. Now, I love beer. And I'm not saying that as a drunk. I'm saying it as a person who loves the taste, variety, and process, and as the girlfriend of a man who brews his own beer. So as I was saying, I love beer, and I love Colorado. However, I attended the festival in 2005 when I still lived there, and I don't know that I would have made the trek back to CO (mostly due to cost) solely for the festival and if I didn't have Josh eagerly chomping at the bit to keep a tally of all the new beers he could be trying. So we went for it.
Kelly picked us up from the airport at 11pm, after a long day of nannying that started at 8am. Needless to say, she was a bit too exhausted to hit the town. Instead she offered to drop us off downtown (Pearl Street) so I could show Josh some of my old stomping grounds. I was the one driving home from the airport, in fear that Kelly might fall asleep at the wheel, and it required no thought to decide where I should drop us off: The Mountain Sun. I've blogged about The Mountain Sun before and anyone who knows me from Boulder knows about my obsession with this pub and brewery (like I said, I love beer). In fact, I've talked about this place so much that, aside from the beer festival, this was what Josh was most excited to visit. He commented on how it's interesting that after hearing about it so much, he had a very particular rendering of what it should look like in his mind, though it turned out to be very different from what he had pictured.
So Thursday night was pretty mellow. After the Mountain Sun we met up with Jeff, who now lives with Kelly, and hit my favorite bar, The Pearl Street Pub & Cellar (aka "The Pub"), and then The Sundown Saloon ("The Downer"). Friday was really the best day. It was beautiful out - luckily, because it was rainy and cold Saturday and Sunday. So Josh and I borrowed Kelly's sweet ride, the Red Dragon X675 scooter, and I gave him a tour of Boulder. For lunch I showed him the deliciousness that is The Smelly Deli. Based on its nickname, one can gather that people's opinion of this eatery is not positive across the board. But man do they make a fantastic gyro. We walked all throughout campus and I showed him the Anthropology building (because coincidentally enough, he was an Anth major in college also) and old framed pictures of the campus around the turn of the century (obviously, not the most recent turn). Then we headed to Chautauqua Park, where we went on a walk-hike and found a shady lookout area to lay around in (I know, you're throwing up a little in your mouth right now). But wait! That's not all.... we then went to the Boulder Creek for a peaceful stroll, before it got too cold and we had to head to Happy Hour to meet some friends.
Just a note: I really wanted to have amazing pictures to show form this trip, from my new low-mileage camera, but, well... I'm a dumbass and kept forgetting to bring it with me. I can't tell you how many picturesque settings I wanted to capture of our day in real nature - sometimes I forget what it looks like, living here in LA. But twenty minutes into each walk or hike I realized that I left it in the scooter. And at night, well at night I apparently forgot that I even owned a nice new camera and that it was just an arm's length away, in my purse. Boo. I got about 6 pictures from the beer fest, and they're basically multiples of the same thing. :( Hopefully soon I'll get used to being the proud owner of this mystical device called "digital camera".
Friday night we got Happy Hour at Centro, where Jeff works. Can't beat $2 rum & cokes and delicious fresh discounted tacos. Our dinner destination was Hapa, where Kelly clued me into Momokawa Pearl Sake, which is by far the best sake I have ever tried. We ran into an old friend, Courtney, who works at Hapa and we caught up for a bit. From there, we met up with Jon and Scott at The Pub. I was very pleased that they not only made the trek from Denver to hang out with me in Boulder even though they knew I would see them the next night, not only did they actually take the bus to get there, but I only had to apply a minor amount of pressure to get them to come into town. I was expecting to have to beg, plead, threaten, and then guilt trip them into it, but no. Fancy that - made my night! So Friday night's sequence was actually a lot like Thursday's... after Josh and I kicked Jon and Scott's asses in pool and then cleaned up the blood soaked floor with the rags of their pride, we headed to The Downer, where I really think Jon and Josh bonded; you know you can breathe a sigh of relief when your boyfriend goes to the bathroom and your best guy friends use that time to give the thumbs-up seal of approval to "the BF" (were Jon's exact words). Lastly, we hit up The Attic, for the latest last call in town.
Saturday was basically a day of preparation for the beer festival. Josh and I had a great time, as was to be expected. We probably tried around a hundred beers (yeah, I did the math). Given the number of brewers that presented, I easily could have spent those hundred 1oz shots on beers I've never tried. But ya know what? I just love Colorado's micro brews so much that I had to survey all those old favorites that I can't get around here. But I wouldn't call that a waste by any means. One thing the brewers do at The Great American Beer Festival is try to get attendees to sport namesake fake tattoos. The reps ask the girls if they can apply tatts to their chests or upper butts. Although a brewery tattoo applied to the chest by an overweight middle aged guy named Budd wreaks of class, I decided to forgo that offer. Instead, I warmed up to an upper arm application. I'm still sporting flaky remnants of my Newport Beach Brewing Company tattoo, which I made the exception for since they have a beer called "Balboa Brown" and that's where my dad lives (plus all their beers were really yummy). My second fake tattoo was a sneak attack from one of my all time favorite breweries, Boulder Beer Company. I was just standing there enjoying some Planet Porter when I felt a smack on my shoulder and a stream of cool liquid trickling down my arm. I was completely taken off guard but the tatt had been sealed before I even had a chance to react.
After the festival ended Josh and I met up with Scott and Jon who were watching their two home teams, The Indians and The Red Sox respectively, duke it out. I have absolutely no recollection of who won. After attempting to play pool and failing miserably, the four of us then proceeded to bar hop around Denver. The bars we went to were surprisingly empty - strange for a Saturday night I would think. I must say that I most enjoyed the semi-wet and cold adventures that occurred en route to each bar on the streets of Denver. Thanks for good times, fellas.
Sunday we had high hopes for going to a museum, but when that rainy morning arrived all we could think of was getting some greasy grub in our bellies and vegging out on Kelly's couch back in Boulder, before our evening flight (which we almost missed and ended up sprinting through DIA "Home Alone" style to catch the slowly closing doors). Now Josh is completely in love with Colorado and keeps suggesting a move to either Denver or Boulder. Although I love it there too, if I am moving to another state, I kind of want to move t somewhere I haven't lived before. Discussion of Portland has taken place, but who know what will happen.
Alright, there's my LONG recap of my weekend trip to Colorado. In light of the gloom outside, I hope you're having a warm and cozy day!
