In three trips to Denver since 2018, this has by far been my longest stint; and I can say honestly that it is growing on me more and more. Colorado has a lot going for it, a great beer scene including the best festival, outdoor activities are never ending throughout the year, and the food scene around Denver alone is worth taking a visit. While there is no lack of water, for an east coast boy its just not salty enough.
Today would be pretty low key. Spending the morning working on cleaning up Pearl and reorganizing her a bit for more comfortable travel around town. I also took advantage of cleaning out the cooler, getting it ready for travel when I would depart Denver. While Josh was on a work call, I put in a little more practice to hone my Mario Kart skills. Later on we would head to a cookout at some friends of Josh and Selby. Their new puppy was the fluffiest ball of energy. It was a party for the three dogs there as much as it was for the dozen or so people. It was great fun to meet some other people and friends of Josh and Selby.
This morning, we (Josh and I) had big plans, starting the day with biscuits from Rise and Shine, we would need to ready ourselves for Summer Beer Fest in the afternoon. Heading down to Mile High Station, we started at Raices Cerveceria before standing in line with the other festival goers. WeldWerks Brewing Company was by far the most popular brewery there, and the one that I looked forward to most. Having our fill, tasting many good brews, we headed home for some rest, before heading out on our own bar crawl downtown enjoying great beer, old school arcade games, and live music. It was fun time and a throwback to when we lived together in college.
After all the fun we had yesterday, We needed all day on Sunday to rest and recover.
Today, I had only a few plans to attend too, first would be to pick up some new wading boots down at Trouts Fly Fishing, lunch out, and to get in touch with D & C Extreme Industries to plan the work for Pearl to get new gears.
While I was at Trouts, I picked up a new net. With high summer temps and wildfires, rising water temps in western rivers and streams make not only catching fish, but releasing ones that can survive very stressful for fish. Having a net will give an angler a better chance at landing fish, but also the chance for fish to recover before darting back to cooler water. For lunch I was craving chicken wings, so I headed back to Fire on the Mountain and enjoyed watching more of the Olympics. Tonight, we cooked dinner at the house.
Fresh hot coffee to start today, I had to make plans for my departure from Denver. While plotting a course west, we watched Olympics on YoutubeTV and I knocked out last weeks recap. Today also marked the first home game for FC Pinzgau Saalfelden (FCPS), a third tier Austrian football (soccer) team and the road to promotion. After playing soccer my entire youth, I have only been a fan during major competition. Last year, I made a small investment in FCPS as a minority owner and have focused energy into a sport I once had the dream of playing professionally.
Another day, another coffee, but this time I went with a Nitro Coffee from Caveman Coffee. Today would be another day watching Olympics. It has been great being able to watch so much of the Olympics since there are so many new events, including surfing; which has been my favorite to watch.
Temps have really risen this week, feeling over 100 by midday, so there has been little motivation for outdoor activity with temps so high. Also I have been waiting to drop Pearl off in Colorado Springs and not wanting to get too far away. Before lunch, I spent the morning going through my fly tackle and working the coils out of the line on the combo I bought. Letting it soak and then stretching it out, I can tell it isn’t the best quality, but it will make do until I need to upgrade.
I gave Dad a call to let him know I wouldn’t be coming to the big lake in a week. I was looking forward to it, but it will give me the opportunity to not rush back to the west coast and up to the Pacific North West before spending all of September in Idaho and Montana. Hopefully, by then, most of the wildfires will be suppressed and it won’t be difficult to get around and spend time outside.
The most interesting thing to happen today, was that I found a note on Pearl when I went out after lunch. While this is not strange to me, I did find it odd someone actually left a note. Many people a day comment on Pearl, walking down the street, at the gas station, or even in a parking lot. But I have yet to find a note on her until now. The curious thing was, is that we couldn’t tell if it was left by a guy or gal. With plans to head to trivia tonight, we would take a poll of the six of us and conclude which it was before contacting the note leaver. With a split decision, I texted the number with little chance someone would respond so quickly. As far as who was right; guy or gal, that was indeterminable from text, but I would later find out when they were interested in buying a Scout and I had recently met someone selling one. Guy it is, and good luck to him finding his first Scout.
With no trivia host tonight, we had some good conversation over pizza and beer, while watching more Olympics.
Today was the day I would take Pearl to get work done. Josh followed me down to Colorado Springs to drop her off. Before heading back to the house, we stopped at a test site Josh monitors for DIPRA (Ductile Iron Pipe Research Association). It was cool to see what a friend does for work, and I actually learned a good bit about ductile iron pipe and how the test sites are run. By the time we got back to Denver it was lunch, so we stopped at Illegal Pete’s for burritos. Todays lunch entertainment was Psych.
Taking a nap in the afternoon, I was rested and ready to go when we played Mario Party later. Track and Field events had started at the Olympics so we watched some of that after meeting another trivia teammate, Hannah, for another round of ice cream at Sweet Cow. This time Chunk stayed on the side lines, even though I went for a waffle cone with two scoops; one being chocolate chocolate chip cookie dough and the other being butter pecan. Tasty, delicious, and of course – messy!
Week 10 Mileage – 74