Bud beats Coors

Our trip to Denver was fun. Flights were very lightly loaded...so light we flew coach and had rows to ourselves each time.

All of the photos are here: http://stillageek.com/newgeek/?page_id=1417 or click through below. Not captions yet...I'm lazy.

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I rented a "Ford Focus or Similar" from Budget. Hint for travelers...sign up for the rental car company member program. We walked off the bus and into a car. No waiting in line. I still prefer National/Alamo as I can pick my own car. Budget assigned me a Kia Sportage V6 4WD SUV. How is this similar to a Ford Focus?!?!?!?

First stop was the Denver Zoo. Kelli and I have been to several Zoos including Fort Worth, Jacksonville, Florida, San Francisco, and San Diego. We've been to aquariums in New Orleans (pre and post Katrina), Atlanta, Chicago, and Monterrey, California. The Denver zoo was "right sized".

We arrived just before it opened...parked less than 30 yards from the front gate. The temp was just below 60...I was a little cold. We took our time and saw the entire Zoo in a little over 2 hours.

Next stop was Golden Colorado for a tour of Coors. This tour was a major let down. The tour seemed like an afterthought. The tour of Budweiser in St. Louis is AWESOME. The Budweiser tour guides are informative and engaging. The Coors tour is a self guided audio tour. Before the tour starts everyone gets a photo taken infront of a back drop of beer kettles. I thought, "wow free photo...neat". While in line there was a "secret code" being used. College aged kids were asking for the "short tour". It took us a bit to figure out what the "short tour" was. The "short tour" is a straight shot to 3 free beers.

After the pretty short tour we entered the hospitality room. We were handed our photos too look at. If we wanted them it would be $20! WTF? Really Coors? Really? We didn't buy them.

We each enjoyed one beer. We could have up to three. The lines for beer were too long to wait for two. I did buy two bottles of beer bread mix. Should be interesting.

After the tour we headed to the Aloft hotel in Broomfield. The hotel just opened in April. Still very new. The hotel was nice. Very "hip" rooms. There is a translucent panel in the shower shared with the bedroom. Kinda voyeuristic. You can't see detail of who is in the shower...but you can get a pretty interesting view. Yeah.

The next morning we hit up two more museums. First was the Forney Transportation Museum. They had a lot of very rare cars (more than a few cars were the only one's in existence). We had a really good time. Afterwards we then hit up The Air & Space Museum. It was okay.

After eating a free lunch (from my Applebees gift card I won on Raffstar!!!!) we headed to the airport. Pretty tired.

I lost my "easy button". I have had it since I started flying. Kind bummed.

Almost ready for the arrival of my mother in law, sister in law and niece. I should be on airport standby Thursday to meet them at the gate.

Wall mounts for new TV's arrive tomorrow. Still not sure which TV's will be mounted.

My Zune is on it's late leg. Played with the Zune HD at Best Buy. Loved it.

Looking forward to Japan.