Durango

Posted on August 31, 2013 by David and Karen

Durango proved to be a great stop for all of the reasons we travelDurangoRVSite – beautiful scenery, great pizza, craft breweries and lots of buses! Let’s start with the scenery. Our RV park, Durango Riverside Resort & RV Park, is on the Animas River and our back-in DurangoViewsriverfront site was able to accommodate us front-in since we carry extra long extensions for electricity, water and sewer and we were able to route all of those to the opposite side for hooking up. The view from Ridge Road was pretty nice, too.
When we were here last year we discovered Fired Up Pizzeria. FiredUpPizzaIt was a tiny little place downtown but they had a great wood-burning pizza oven and made very good pizza. We were happy to find that they have moved to a new, much larger downtown location and that they are still making one of the best pizzas we’ve had FiredUpOvenanywhere in that oven (so good that we had to eat here twice!). It was encouraging to hear the owner, Tad, tell us that he was considering opening up one somewhere in Texas. We could certainly live there!
FiredUpMeatball      FiredUpPepperoni
And then there are the breweries. We had visited only a couple of SkaFlightthem last year so we made it a SkaBrownRedpoint to go to the other two first this time. Ska Brewing had several good choices that we tasted on a flight. Karen chose the Buster Nut Brown Ale that she had before as a guest beer at West Flanders in Boulder, and I chose the Pinstripe Red Ale. We both had that red ale again when we went to Fired Up as they wisely had it on tap there, too.
The next stop was Durango Brewing Company. DurangoBrewingTapsThere doesn’t appear to be much reason to go here except for the beer. The tap room decor is uninspired and the kids that work there fit in well with that. When Karen heard the cook ask someone what “au jus” was we were glad we didn’t try to eat there. However, their Dark Lager was quite good and I’d certainly go back to try more.
The next day we managed to get back downtown and try the two breweries we had been to last year. SteamworksStoutRedThe first was Steamworks Brewing. I chose their Backslide Stout but when Karen tasted it and wanted one, too, I let her have mine and I switched to the Lizard Head Red. Both were good. The place could use some updating but we did like their threaded steel pipe shelving behind the bar. From there it wasn’t a far walk to Carver Brewing Company. CarverNutBrownOatmealStoutThere were several good choices here and after a taste I chose the Iron Horse Oatmeal Stout and Karen went with the Colorado Trail Nut Brown Ale.SideshowBob While we were enjoying the excellent brews a worker from the back came up front and I immediately thought of Sideshow Bob. What do you think? Even more important, though, was that we found out there was yet another brewery in town that was new since our last visit to Durango. It would be the next day before we stopped by the Brew Pub & Kitchen. BrewCopperKettleAt first glance we thought this might be a bust since they didn’t have any of BrewPilsnerPaleAleour favorite beers on tap – no porters, stouts, browns, reds or ambers. However, after talking with the brewer Karen had the Cecilia pilsner and I chose their Elise American pale ale. He did mention that he had a porter in the fermenter but it was a couple of weeks away from being ready to keg. If it turns out as good as the pale ale and pilsner, I’m sure it will be a winner.

When we were here last year, we didn’t see any VW buses. This time was quite different, though, probably just because we’ve gotten a lot better at it. We got four one day, three the next day and one more on our way out. Durango is our kind of place!EightBuses

Posted in Beer, Colorado, Pizza, Scenic, VW Bus | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Million Dollar Highway

Posted on August 28, 2013 by David and Karen

Warning  Truckers
We can’t say we weren’t warned, but warnings weren’t really necessary since we have traveled this road before. But that was last year and in the car. Plus, I drove this road 35 years ago with our family of six in a 1968 VW bus. This time, though, we would be driving the 40-foot motor home and towing the car. We had a few self-imposed rules to make sure the drive went smooth: only go in good weather, keep all ten tires on the pavement at all times, and Karen’s special rule – go SLOW.
Driving  DropOff
The first twelve miles of U.S. Highway 550 from Ouray to Silverton take you to the summit at Red Mountain Pass, elevation 11,018 feet. It is this section that gives the Million Dollar Highway it’s name. There are two legends about the name. One is that it cost a million dollars a mile to build in the 1920s, and two is that its fill dirt contains a million dollars in gold ore.
RedMountainPass  MillionDollarHighway
BlindCurve  CurveView
NiceView  MountainView
I am told that the scenery is really amazing and beautiful but honestly, all I recall seeing is yellow stripes on the left and white stripes on the right.

Million Dollar Highway Photo Album (click to view)

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Ouray

Posted on August 27, 2013 by David and Karen

KOARainWe made an overnight stop in Grand Junction with plans to visit the Colorado National Monument before heading on down to Ouray, Colorado. However, those plans got washed out with the rain that fell all afternoon and into the evening. But they needed the rain much more than we needed to see the sights on this trip so we were okay with that. KannahCreekThe rain did not impede the brewery tour, though, and Grand Junction has a couple of them. Both have food and beer so we had to make a choice of where to eat and we chose Kannah Creek Brewing because their food is pizza. They had several really good beers and Karen chose the Lands End Amber and KannahCreekSampleI got the Black Ridge Stout which was on nitro. Unfortunately, though, their pizza was mediocre and it didn’t help that they failed to cook it well done as requested. RockslideStoutThe next stop was Rockslide Brew Pub. If we had it to do over again we might have only eaten here and had beer at Kannah Creek because their beer was as mediocre as Kannah’s pizza. Again, Karen had an amber and I had a stout and although they looked different, they tasted pretty much the same. Oh well, if all breweries were good we wouldn’t need to keep trying them.

This week is a vacation week for me and Monday morning we made the short but beautiful trip to Ouray. Nestled in the San Juan mountains, it is a picturesque and historic old mining town. We were fortunate enough to get an RV spot right on the Uncomahgre River. RiverRVSiteAnd I do mean right on the river. Luckily, the forecasted flash flood warnings didn’t come to pass and we were able to enjoy the magnificent scenery, cool weather and the three area breweries! We would be here only two nights so the first order of business was a burger at Maggie’s Kitchen. MrGrumpyPantsMaggiesKitchenAnd if that most excellent burger and crispy fries weren’t enough, there was a brewery that we didn’t know about right next door, the Ourayle House Brewery, aka, Mr. Grumpy Pants Brewing Company. The chocolate caramel stout that Karen had and the red ale that I had were the perfect compliment to Maggie’s bacon cheeseburgers. We walked Main Street for awhile and somehow ended up at the Ouray Brewery, the one we already knew about. The beer was nothing special but the view of the town and the mountains from their third-story deck was worth the climb of the two flights of stairs to get there. OurayBrewingView

MrGrumpyPantsStoutandRedThe next afternoon we paid another visit to Mr. Grumpy Pants and enjoyed that delicious red ale and chocolate caramel stout once again. We skipped the burger at Maggie’s this time because we had our sights set on a pizza at a little brewery about ten miles north in the town of Ridgway, Colorado Boy Pub & Brewery. Ridgway is a small town of about 1,000 people and the pub appears to be the place to gather. We arrived when they opened at four o’clock, got a couple of seats at the bar and soon the place was full. ColoradoBoyIrishRedColoradoBoyPizzaAfter a sample taste, Karen ordered their brown ale and I got the Irish red ale. They were both quite good and we were getting hungry so we ordered a pizza. Now this was a very good pizza. The crust had just the right crunch and the sauce, cheese and pepperoni were all very good. I ordered their Summer Ale (an ESB) to go with it and that was very good, too. RidgwayMountainViewNow, the town of Ouray sits in the middle of the mountains and the views are mostly straight up, but one nice thing about Ridgway is you get an amazing view of the mountains. We think we could live here.

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Goodbye Bend, Hello Los Cucos

Posted on August 24, 2013 by David and Karen

RatHoleAlSusanThe time came to slowly start making our way back from where we came but not before one more stop at our favorite Bend brewery, Rat Hole Brew Pub. RatHoleBratOwners Al and Susan have done a great job with their start-up enterprise and we wish them much success. Along with the growler filled with their Fence Post Porter, I had to have another smoked brat and Karen had the pulled pork sliders KimchiKurtiswith Kimchi – wow, their food is as good as their beer! Head chef, Kurtis, came out and chatted with us for awhile and then handed Karen his recipe for the Kimchi that he had been busy writing down as we ate. We’re going to miss this place but Al told us where we could buy bottles of their porter in town so we made that our next stop.

We made an overnight stop in Twin Falls, Idaho, so we could see in person what we saw a painting of in a Jackson art gallery, Shoshone Falls.
ShoshoneFallsPanaramaWe both agree it was well worth the stop. However, it would be that evening before the true purpose of routing ourselves through Salt Lake City would be fulfilled. LosCucosChipsSalsaThat, of course, was the required overnight stop in Sandy, Utah, so we could have dinner at Los Cucos Mexican Cafe, LosCucosEnchiladasour favorite restaurant back home! After all the chips and salsa we could handle in one sitting, which was just as good as we get at home, we both had the beef fajita enchiladas, also just like home. Heck, our waiter was even named José, just like at home! But we weren’t done yet. LosCucosSalsaKnowing it would be four long weeks before we could do it again (back home), we had them fill the quart jar, that Karen so wisely brought just for this purpose, with their best-ever salsa. Jake and Peggy didn’t get left out, either, since we also got a couple of beef fajita tacos to go. That should keep us happy living wherever we go for the next few weeks!

Posted in Beer, Idaho, Scenic, Utah | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Mount Bachelor

Posted on August 18, 2013 by David and Karen

Panorama1
The clouds and the smokey haze from the wildfires down in southern Oregon that had been hanging around for the past several days finally took their leave and Sunday morning greeted us with the clear blue skies that we remembered from last year. ChairLiftGoingDownWe wasted no time in making plans to take advantage of this perfect opportunity to view the world from the top of nearby Mount Bachelor. KarenChairLiftDuring the winter this is the largest ski resort in the Pacific Northwest but they operate the chair lift during the summer, too, which made for an easy ascent. From the lodge at the top we took in the views of the Three Sisters and Broken Top mountains. We were really glad to have such a clear day and that none of these volcanoes decided it was time to blow.

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Bend

Posted on August 15, 2013 by David and Karen

Although Bend, Oregon, claims to have the most craft breweries per capita in the nation, CrownVilla486that is not the only, or necessarily the main reason we like it so much. The other compelling reasons are the mild weather and the great views of the nearby Cascade mountains. With an average of almost 300 days of sunshine a year, low humidity and cool nights, the high desert climate is the antithesis of the Texas summers that we are definitely not missing. Then, too, there is the Crown Villa RV Resort. With it’s long, wide RV spaces, the tall pine trees and the thick carpets of green grass, 10BendBusesit’s one of the nicest parks we’ve ever seen. Bend also is the current record-holder for the most number of VW buses we’ve seen in a single day (not counting VW shows) – 10!

Of course, there are the breweries which were documented in the previous post but with only a couple of exceptions they also serve food and we have eaten well at those that we tried.
10BarrelPizzaKaren   BendBrewingChipsSalsa   BendBrewingFishNChips   BendBrewingBurger
There was pizza at 10 Barrel Brewing; chips & salsa, a burger and fish & chips at Bend Brewing; and the pulled pork sliders and tacos at Rat Hole. Rat Hole Brew Pub was a nifty find. Having only opened four weeks ago, they weren’t on any list we’d seen and the only reason we stumbled across them was because they were in the old location of Old Mill Brew Wërks who had recently moved to a larger facility. The Rotation Red I had and the HayStack HazelNut Brown that Karen had were quite good so we went back a few days later and that’s when we had the pulled pork with Kimchi which was most excellent. The owners told us they were out of their Fence Post Porter because of the upcoming Bend Brewfest but we were attending and could try it there, right?

BrewFest Actually, the idea of large crowds and standing in long lines to get a taste of beer has no appeal for either of us. We much prefer showing up at a small brewery’s tap room and talking with the brewers while having a pint of the beer that was chosen after a couple of sample tastings. BeerfestPourHowever, the thought was put into our heads and we reckoned that we could go early Thursday afternoon to avoid the largest crowds and get a taste of Rat Hole’s porter. So, that’s what we did and our plan to limit our exposure to the 30,000 payed off. The price of admission was the purchase of a plastic mug clearly delineated at the four ounce level that included five tokens, one for each beer sample. The volunteer pourers appeared to have been carefully trained to only fill to the four ounce mark but when we got to Rat Hole for the second time, the Fence Post Porter pour looked to be significantly more than that. How about that? Our favorite fest beer and the volunteer missed the class on four ounce pours!

Posted in Beer, Oregon, Pizza, Scenic, VW Bus | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

50 Breweries in 50 Days

Posted on August 12, 2013 by David and Karen

50BreweriesIt was never our intention and actually quite coincidental. In fact, if not for Tom Nash posing the question to Karen, we probably wouldn’t have even realized it. But since the question was raised, an accurate accounting was required, and here it is.

Date City Brewery
6/23/13 Colorado Springs Bristol Brewing
6/25/13 Edwards Crazy Mountain Brewing
6/25/13 Edwards Gore Range Brewery
6/28/13 Breckenridge Breckenridge Brew Pub
6/28/13 Dillon Pug Ryan’s Brewing
6/29/13 Frisco Backcountry Brewery
6/30/13 Golden Golden City Brewery
6/30/13 Golden Mountain Toad Brewing
7/1/13 Lakewood Hops Grill & Brewery
7/2/13 Boulder Mountain Sun Pub & Brewery
7/2/13 Boulder Twisted Pine Brewing
7/3/13 Denver Denver Beer Co.
7/3/13 Denver Strange Brewing
7/4/13 Boulder Walnut Brewery & Restaurant
7/4/13 Boulder Avery Brewing
7/5/13 Golden Cannonball Creek Brewing
7/6/13 Boulder Boulder Beer Company
7/6/13 Boulder Wild Woods Brewery
7/7/13 Denver Great Divide Brewing
7/7/13 Denver Prost Brewing
7/9/13 Loveland Big Beaver Brewing
7/11/13 Denver Black Shirt Brewing
7/13/13 Boulder West Flanders Brewing
7/13/13 Boulder BRU Handbuilt Ales
7/13/13 Boulder Fate Brewing
7/14/13 Idaho Springs Tommyknocker Brewing
7/14/13 Arvada Arvada Beer Company
7/14/13 Arvada Odyssey Beerwerks
7/15/13 Fort Collins Fort Collins Brewery
7/15/13 Fort Collins Odell Brewing
7/16/13 Fort Collins Pateros Creek Brewing
7/16/13 Fort Collins Equinox Brewing
7/17/13 Fort Collins Black Bottle Brewing
7/17/13 Loveland Grimm Brothers Brewhouse
7/21/13 Jackson Snake River Brewing
7/22/13 Victor Wildlife Brewing
7/22/13 Victor Grand Teton Brewery
8/4/13 Sisters Three Creeks Brewing
8/7/13 Bend Silver Moon Brewing
8/7/13 Bend McMenamins Old St. Francis School
8/8/13 Bend Worthy Brewing
8/8/13 Bend Rat Hole Brew Pub
8/9/13 Bend Deschutes Brewing
8/9/13 Bend Brew Wërks
8/10/13 Bend Crux Fermentation Project
8/10/13 Bend Boneyard Brewing
8/11/13 Bend GoodLIfe Brewing
8/11/13 Bend 10 Barrel Brewing
8/12/13 Bend Bend Brewing Company
8/12/13 Bend Cascade Lakes Lodge

 

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Sisters, Oregon

Posted on August 5, 2013 by David and Karen

Our intention was to stay in Bend, Oregon, for two weeks at the most lovely Crown Villa RV ResortBendSistersGardenRv but when we tried to make the reservation a month ago, we were told they only had one week available and we took it. We still wanted to be in Bend for two weeks so we looked for another option for the first week and found the Bend/Sisters Garden RV Resort in Sisters, Oregon, about 18 miles away. Although we were able to eventually get our week at Crown Villa stretched into eleven nights, we were very pleased with the park in Sisters. These are two of the nicest RV parks anywhere.

ThreeCreeksIn our limited experience, the best option in Sisters is Three Creeks Brewing (and restaurant). ThreeCreeksPorterBrownWe stopped by for a beer last year but this time we came hungry, too, and hoped they still had that chocolate porter that we liked so much last time. Karen chose the Five Pines Chocolate Porter and I had the Firestorm Red and we enjoyed those while studying the food menu. Our choices were a grilled chicken Ceasar salad for Karen and the Pollo Fundido for me, which was a ThreeCreeksCeasarSaladThreeCreeksPolloFundidosort of chicken chimichanga. They were both quite good, so good that two nights later we returned to do it again, except I had the happy hour pulled pork tacos for a buck fifty each (and I had three).

SahalieFallsKaren saw online somewhere that there were these two waterfalls not far away and they can be seen by a short walk from the car. KoosahFallsSo, one day after work we drove the 45 minutes to Sahalie Falls. Wow, there’s a lot of water falling going on here. One option is to hike downstream to Koosah Falls, but that would mean a hike back to the car, so we took the drive option. It really wasn’t a long walk at all because the old lady with the cane that was getting out of her car about the same time as us back upstream showed up on the trail shortly after we got there in the car.

ClearLakeStellersJayOn the way back we took a short detour down to Clear Lake Resort. This sure doesn’t look like the Clear Lake in Galveston County – it’s actually clear! The temptation to rent a rowboat and take it out quickly faded but we had fun watching the ducks dive down in the crystal water and trying to get a good photo of the Stellers Jays before they flew off.

Posted in Beer, Oregon, Scenic | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Grand Targhee

Posted on August 2, 2013 by David and Karen

TetonsFromTopOn our last day in the Teton Valley, we drove back through Alta, Wyoming, and up to the Grand Targhee Resort. Our mission was to take the chairlift up to the top of the mountain and enjoy the incredible views of the Tetons above and the valley below. ChairliftViewIt was a beautiful sunny day and a nice quiet ride to the 9862-foot top of Fred’s Mountain. Karen did a great job of laying aside her fear of heights and really enjoyed both the chairlift ride and the view from the top. There are those who take their mountain bikes up on the lift and ride the trails back down. BikersonLiftMountainBikersWe even met one family that hiked for three and a half hours to the top but were taking the lift down. We were quite content to ride the lift both ways.

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Jackson Hole

Posted on July 27, 2013 by David and Karen

Wyoming’s Jackson Hole is separated from Idaho’s Teton Valley by the Teton Pass whose 8341-foot elevation summit and TetonPass10 percent grades on each side were a challenge for the motorhome on our first visit two years ago. We’ve managed to find alternate routes to get to Tetonia in the motorhome but to get to Jackson and Grand Teton National Park you have to go over the pass. Good thing the car handles it just fine. Our first full day here was beautiful without a cloud in the sky which was the perfect opportunity to get over the pass and find the Moulten Barn that we’ve seen so many pictures of and take a few photos of our own. TAMoultenBarnI followed the directions I found online and when we arrived we discovered that there are two JohnMoultenBarn2Moulten barns – The T.A. Moulten barn and the John Moulten barn. Both are iconic and the subject of many photos and paintings.

SnakeRiverBrewingTapsAfter what would have been an expensive excursion back in the film days, we headed into Jackson to look for Snake River Brewing. SnakeRiverStoutAlthough we had low expectations since we were in a tourist town, the Zonker Stout that we both had was so good that we decided to go for broke and order food, too. SnakeRiverTacosThey did a great job on Karen’s pizza and the steak taco appetizer I had tasted great. I could have eaten three more of them.

It was several days later that we drove back to Jackson to try out the only other brewery in town that we’d heard about. ThaiMeUpThe name of the place is Thai Me Up and it’s a brewery and a Thai restaurant. Their online menu showed a couple of beers that we would probably like plus coconut shrimp and pad thai that had our interest. However, their first strike was the foul smell of several unbussed tables that we had to walk past to the bar. Strike two was that they were out of the two beers that we wanted to try and then there was the bad vibes SnakeRiverPizzaKaren got from her visit to the restroom. Strike three and we were out. We headed straight for the sure thing back at Snake River Brewing and stuck with our safe bets – Zonker Stout, pizza and steak tacos!

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