Hey, can we go to Carhenge again???
Darn, I guess we actually have to get home at some point.
The remainder of our Carhenge day was spent riding through more of Nebraska and into Colorado with the eventual goal of arriving in Golden. The weather was pretty nice that day, warm, but not too hot. We thought we were in the clear with rain until we turned west and faced Denver in the distance.
Big black clouds sat on the horizon. I'm pretty sure those clouds were taunting us.
You know where this is going.
About 30 miles from Golden the rain started really coming down. We had to pull over under an overpass and don the rain gear one final time. The upside of the rain was it resulted in a larger than life, beautiful rainbow arching over the entire city. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture. But trust me when I say it was cool. It's not often you see a rainbow end to end.
We made it to our hotel in Golden and then met one of Derek and Cari's friends for dinner nearby. One sort of notable item from dinner was that I learned how to make a Fireball shot even better...you drop it into a glass of Angry Orchard. It's cinnamon apple yumminess! Apple pie in liquid form. I think it's called an Angry Ball? Whatever it was called, it was really tasty!
You know what else is in Golden? The Coors Brewery.
It was not a coincidence that we were staying in Golden. When Mike was planning the route it was looking very likely we would need to make a stop in the Denver area...so why not go just a tad further to Golden and work in a brewery tour if possible? Derek and Cari are big Keystone Light fans (both had done the tour before) and I didn't even know this, but Coors also makes my favorite beer, Blue Moon.
We arrived too late on the 11th to do the tour so we planned to go first thing on Friday morning. Coors starts the tours at 10 am and when we arrived around 9:45 am there was already a large line.
A small bus picks up about a dozen people at a time and you get a quick ride around downtown Golden with a history lesson before getting dropped back off at the brewery to start the actual tour.
The tour involves one of those portable devices that you listen to at various stations as you make your way through. You get a small taste of beer halfway through and the tour ends in the Coors lounge where you get 3 larger samples of beer. I have to say, beer, fresh and ice cold from those kegs, tastes pretty damn good! No comparison to drinking it from a can or bottle or even on draft from a bar.
I learned quite a few fun and interesting facts about the brewing process and Coors. But I can't tell you about them. They are top secret.
Wait, that's not true.
It's just that my brain isn't so great at holding onto those kinds of detailed details. And the internet isn't doing a good job of giving me a down and dirty list to share with you right now (I'm sure that's user error).
Here's what I can tell you. They say the secret to Coors beer is all about the water. Coors was first to introduce beer in aluminum cans, which opened the door to manufacturers producing other products in aluminum cans. And Coors pretty much pioneered the can recycling revolution that we know today. In their early years they would buy back the cans and had somewhere in the 90% return rate on their cans. Or maybe it was 80%...ugh, I don't know? Please don't quote me on any of this. If you want to know all the fun facts, go there and take a tour. It's free, it's fun and it's really interesting even if you aren't a beer fan. Plus you get free beer!
After spending the morning touring Coors, our day of riding got off to late start somewhere around 12:30ish pm. We still had 400+ miles to cover to end up in Richfield, Utah for the night.
Riding through Colorado was beautiful. Riding through Utah was, wow! I had some camera issues in Utah. For some reason many of my pictures were a little blurry, which was a little disappointing. I'm going to share some of them anyway to at least give you a sense of what we saw.
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| Not sure why Mike's face looks like he just emerged from a coal mine... |
The mountains and landscape were just stunning. These pictures don't even come close to doing it justice. We were riding west, into the sun and we got to see the sun set in this beautiful place. It was nice evening ride.
I would like to go back and see more of Utah for sure!
We finally arrived in Richfield around 9:45 pm and made it to one of the few restaurants in town open after 10pm. Where, by the way, you can only order alcohol if you also order food to accompany it. Welcome to Utah!
Next up on Monday is our final destination before going home--Vegas!
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