It’s been a relatively short, but long day. I slept in late (8:30 – I’ve been waking up with the sun most days), and headed from Denver to Golden, CO. Some of you may have heard of it, it’s home to the largest brewery in the states, Coor’s. So, I spent a couple hours touring the brewery and sampling the different beers they make in their lounge. To my surprise, Blue Moon is made by Coor’s. Who knew.

It was definitely a very interesting place to visit, it’s an interesting chemical process to make beer. I didn’t realize that the barley actually germinated before they used it. The canning process was amazing to behold as well. You definitely have to marvel at the technology we’ve developed to package things, all without human interference. And a tidbit of knowledge I picked up: were a railroad car full of 6-packs to be delivered to your house, you would have enough to drink a 6-pack a day for 90 years. Interesting trivia, eh?

After lunch, I headed back to Denver to check out Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum. Kind of a cool place, not really worth the admission though. In my opinion, the South Dakota Air and Space museum was better. Wings was crammed into an old Air Force hangar, planes were so close together you could barely walk between some of them and the lighting was abysmal. However, they did have an X-Wing Fighter on display (I’m such a huge nerd…).

They closed at 5pm and I quickly discovered that navigating downtown Denver was tough, especially during rush hour. I gave up my attempt to see the 16th St. Mall and Larimer Square for the night (I’ll try again when I go through Denver on Sunday) and headed for Colorado Springs. An hour of fighting rush hour, stop and go interstate travel later, and I made it to the outskirts of Denver, another 50 minutes, and here I am for the night.

Tomorrow, the Air Force Academy, Garden of the Gods, Pikes Peak and Cripple Creek.

Travel Distance: 116 miles