In the final stretch of my road trip, my dad flew to Denver to travel the last week with me and assist in driving home the rest of the way. For those of you that don’t know my father (my friends and family are laughing by this point I’m sure), we have quite opposite ideas about travel and schedules. Everyone who travels with him knows that an itinerary will be jam-packed from 7am to 9pm and that you better eat breakfast, because there aren’t lunch breaks. I give my pops some credit; he has loosened up a bit in his older age, and sometimes we don’t have to begin the day until 8 and even though lunch usually isn’t factored in, we sometimes stop for a snack. I picked my dad up at the airport, we checked into our hotel, and went for Mexican food nearby.

We planned to spend a few more days in Colorado to visit the Broncos stadium and my cousin and his girlfriend who had moved to Denver since we last saw them, take a trip to Golden to visit the Coors brewery, and spend a morning up in Estes Park and an afternoon exploring Boulder.

The Broncos stadium and the Coors brewery were entirely my dad’s picks. I hated the fact that Tim Tebow played for the Broncos (at the time we went), but my dad loves touring baseball and football stadiums wherever he goes. I also have a severe aversion t0 beer. Frankly, I think beer is disgusting. Hand me a glass of wine or a liquor drink, and I will be much happier. So even though the tasting at the end of the brewery tour wasn’t exactly the highlight of the tour for me, I was interested to see how it was made and thought the Coors tour was excellent. It begins with the history of the company and leads into how beer is brewed and bottled.

They give you a headset and you can tour at your leisure. No tour guide to follow, yet if you have questions, there is an employee at every stop.

At the conclusion of the tour, during the tasting, I took a few sips of Blue Moon to make my dad happy. It still tasted like beer (ie gross), but can’t say I didn’t try.

While in Golden, we also took a drive up Lookout Mountain. Initially, we just wanted to see the beautiful views, but we also discovered Buffalo Bill’s grave.

Golden was a quaint little town and the Coors factory ended up being a good time. My dad liked Golden so much that he informed my mother that he wanted to spend six months there after retirement. Needless to say that didn’t go over so well (perhaps due to its proximity to Coors?) but it does have those beautiful mountain views and that small town feel.