A Michigan Journey: Rocky Mountain Sightseeing

Today we spent most of the day driving north along the foothills to do some sightseeing north and west of Denver. First we drove north on the freeway (470), to Boulder. This was a really nice college town right at the bottom of the mountain. It was a very scenic drive to get there and the town was quite nice as well. The University of Colorado was a huge campus with old but very nice brick buildings. The college ran along the east side of the highway and the west side was stores and other businesses. There is a pedestrian mall in the middle of the downtown area and it looked quite fashionable!

From Boulder we drove back south to Golden Gate Canyon State park about fifteen miles up into the front range. This was a very rugged and picturesque area and looked like it would be a great hunting destination for mule deer, elk and other big game. The visitor center had several cougars mounted and on display. They were also residents of the area.

From there it was down to Golden, Colorado, (yeah, the Coors brewery). We couldn't resist the free tour and at the end you get free beer! Golden was a really neat old style western town. Small enough so there wasn't a lot of traffic, but big enough so there was a lot to see and do. Golden was almost voted to be the state capitol many years ago, but Denver won out.

After spending several hours between the brewery and town of Golden we headed to Morrison and toured Red Rocks Amphitheatre and park. This is a music concert venue extraordinaire! The surrounding park looked just like the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs.

Here are some pictures from the day....

This was a vista south of Boulder, Colorado. Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures in town!

Here we are at the Coors Brewery. This is the largest brewery in the world and was originally started in 1873!

We were surprised at all the brands owned by Coors (Of course it is now MillerCoors.)

Huge copper kettles in the brewery. These were used to start the brewing process.

Everyone's favorite part of the tour. This was the sampling room. They had quite a few flavors on tap including Blue Moon, Colorado Native, Keystone, Coors and Coors light, and other specialty brands.