Leg 3: Colorado

So no one prepared me for the massive expansiveness which is the west... it goes on and on. I was told Kansas is boring. That turned out to be mostly wrong. I was told that Eastern Colorado is as boring as Kansas, which was true... except that I thought it was MORE boring than Kansas. But NO ONE told me how freaking LARGE the whole area is! It goes on for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles. It's so big, the speed limit in Colorado is 75 mph. Probably because they know that if people don't go fast from the Kansas border they'll lose interest before they get to the Rocky Mountains.

Okay, so the terrain does change as you go on, but only very slowly. Once the terrain changes it's neat to look at, but not for hours at a time. It just goes on and on forever. It was neat to see the incredibly massive sky and lack of trees. I saw tumbleweeds for the first time EVER, which was fantastic. The terrain was certainly interesting. However, by the time you see the Rockies you've already begun to wonder if you really will, at any point, see mountains. You count down mile after mile until you are ready to pull your hair out from the pure boredom of the terrain. You begin to feel nauseous just looking at the greenish/brown grasses. Then you see the mountains!

We got there in about 4 hours. The only major adventure was the weird feeling I got from the elevation. Did you know that could happen? I felt the way I feel when I'm in a plane and I feel kinda woozy because I'm, well, in a plane high above the earth. I'm still feeling a bit of it... weird, eh?

The first thing we did is go to the New Belgium Brewery. This is one of the largest breweries in the country and probably the largest microbrewery. Aaron and Steve (Aaron's friend that lives in Fort Collins and who we are staying with) had both been there before, but not me. It was very cool to go and see it. Here is a pic of Aaron and I at the brewery. At this point I was still feeling really lightheaded from the elevation.

The next place we went was the O'Dell brewery where we ordered an assortment of beers (next picture). Then after that we went to Coopersmith's brewery.

After that we were beered out and went for dinner at a place called Rasta Pasta in Old Towne. It was a really nice area. The mountain air is clear and cool and I could tell immediately the difference. It smelled nice! People were incredibly casual and, big surprise, people in this area tend to support many causes and be vegetarian. I think I would like it here. Except for one thing. People were SUPER casual... super casual. I saw people wearing sweatpants to dinner... that just shocks me. Not because I don't like sweatpants as much as I never see people in them who are not sick and especially not in a nice area of town in Colorado. I expected it to be much more city-like and, when I think of a city, I immediatly picture more glamorous women in heels...

Anyway, Old Towne was beautiful (see picture below)

All in all it was a great day! It was nice to have a break from the driving and to get a chance to do something fun. Plus I really enjoyed seeing Colorado. I'm not looking forward to tomorrow and the next day so much. We have about 7 hours each day to drive. After driving so long yesterday I don't want to drive again AT ALL! I just keep telling myself that after these 2 days our drive is basically over, since it's only 4 hours from Reno, our last leg...

So, anyway, I have that to look forward to! I'll be sure to take some pics for you. We are headed up to Wyoming tomorrow to get to our final destination of Salt Lake City, UT.