Last month my husband and I took a trip to Denver to attend the 8th Annual Denver International Wine Festival. While we were in Colorado we took the opportunity to explore Boulder and some of the other mountain cities. Although we were still working every day, it was a great time to get away and reassess our priorities for 2012.
I wanted to post a few photos from the trip, since we saw so many beautiful things and places while we were there.
Visiting the many breweries was definitely the highlight of the trip for me. My tastes have moved more in the direction of IPAs lately, the hoppier the better. 🙂 Walnut Brewery was the first place we visited:
Boulder was covered in snow when we arrived. I fell in love with this city instantly – it’s almost like a cleaner, mountain version of Eugene, Oregon.
We did a tiny bit of shopping…
The wine festival was held at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum, a beautiful venue full of old fighter planes:
This is a picture of my husband drinking a tiny martini made from American Harvest organic vodka. We’re more of a gin family, but this was probably the best vodka I’ve ever tasted. We also had the pleasure of meeting the maker of the Roadhouse Spirits later on in the trip. He let us tour his facility and taste some of his latest work. This was my first time to ever visit a distillery. The Roadhouse barrel-aged gin has an extraordinarily masculine flavor, and I wish we could get this in other parts of the country. The laws are too restrictive in Oklahoma for us to be importing this gin anytime soon. 🙁
After the festival we traveled up into the mountains to enjoy some skiing at Loveland and a cozy stay at the Chateau Chamonix in Georgetown. We hopped around a few cities in the mountains and then headed back towards Boulder to tour some more breweries, including Left Hand Brewing Company, a personal favorite.
I wish I had taken more pictures of the dogs. People in Colorado take their fluffy friends everywhere with them and we met many fine puppy dogs on our travels. Driving through the snowy mountains with my best friend was probably the best part. Every day we cranked the tunes and hunted for places on maps like regular tourists. Overall it was a really fun trip, full of beautiful beers and landscapes. 🙂
