We Could Live Here

Breckenridge, Leadville and Minturn

Posted on June 24, 2013 by David and Karen

Instead of taking I-25 south to Denver and then I-70 west from Colorado Springs to Breckenridge, we traveled the shorter route on US-24 west to CO-9 north and arrived in Breckenridge from the back side. This was a great decision for several reasons: it was 40 miles shorter, there was little traffic and no truck traffic, instead of the several long, steep passes on I-70 we had only one, and it was quite short and not all that steep, and best of all, the scenery was amazing! The climb to the Hoosier Pass summit was straight and smooth and the downhill 8% grade had multiple double-hairpins but it was over pretty quick even at 10 mph.

Once settled in at our Tiger Run Resort site, we headed to town for something to eat. Being the very first day of our week here we figured we could take a chance on Mi Casa Mexican Restaurant and Cantina since we’d have plenty of time to make up for it if it was awful. It wasn’t bad at all and the chips and salsa and queso were actually quite good. Karen had a Left Hand Milk Stout Nitro (yeah, from a bottle) and I had the Odell Cuthroat Porter, both from Colorado breweries that we hope to visit soon.

I took Monday off as a vacation day so we could head over to Leadville, an old mining town that has been in decline for over 100 years. At over 10,000 feet elevation it is the highest incorporated city in the U.S. The attraction for us is a beautiful drive from Breckenridge, a neat little antique mall and driving up and down all the streets in town looking at the old, small houses – some quaint, some run down, some funky.

From Leadville, we took US-24 up to Vail and on the way, in and around the small town of Minturn on the Eagle River,
we spotted four VW buses! That’s a pretty good find for a town of about a thousand. In our next post, we will cover Vail and how we killed some time waiting for our preferred restaurant to reopen for dinner. Hint: it involves breweries.

Posted in Beer, Colorado, Pizza, VW Bus | Tagged Beer, Breweries, Bus, Pizza, RV, Scenic, Travel, VW Bus | Leave a comment

Bristol Brewing Company

Posted on June 23, 2013 by David and Karen

A couple of years ago, when stopping in Colorado Springs just for the night, we discovered the Bristol Brewing Company due to it’s adjacent proximity to the Edelweiss German Restaurant. So, on our way back to the motor home we stopped by for a pint but the door was locked and it appeared to be gone. With the hope that they’ve just moved to a new location I looked up their number and gave them a call. I was relieved when they answered on the first ring and told me they had moved just last month to the school building across the street and down one block.

Sure enough, across the street and down one block was what was the Ivywild School, an old elementary school that they’ve renovated and turned into a brewery, pub, deli and bakery – a pretty cool use of an old school building, indeed! There being no porters or stouts in their current line-up, we shared a pint of their Red Rocket Pale Ale. It was a beautiful amber color, a little more hoppy than malty, but well-balanced with a crisp finish.

We both had fleeting thoughts about stopping at another brew pub just down the street from our RV park but the tired took over quickly and we headed home and called it a (long) day.

Posted in Beer, Colorado | Tagged Beer, Breweries, RV, Travel | Leave a comment

Overnight in Colorado Springs

Posted on June 22, 2013 by David and Karen

My granddaughter Caitlyn and her husband Troy, who serves in the US Army, were kind enough to get transferred from Lacey, Washington, to Colorado Springs recently so that made it much easier for us to get up there to see our great-grandkids Lane and Charlene (and Caitlyn and Troy, of course). It would be a quick visit since we had reservations for the RV park

in Breckenridge the following day but we got to see their house on the base at Fort Carson and Lane (age 3) gave us the grand tour of every room and closet in the place! One of the highlights for me was when Charlene first saw me she immediately reached out her arms for me to take her and I was more than happy to oblige. Lane took to Karen real quick and even let her put his shoes on him so we could all go out to eat at Ramano’s Macaroni Grill.

It was a great visit but way too short. Since our summer plans are pretty open-ended, we may just have to come back this way and stay longer!

Posted in Colorado | Tagged RV, Travel | Leave a comment

575 Pizzeria

Posted on June 21, 2013 by David and Karen

We had our most very favorite pizza tonight so we must be back in Amarillo. We didn’t want to have to wait any longer to find out if it was as good as we remembered so we made it a point to arrive early. The first thing I noticed as we walked to our table was that I would have to make a decision about which beer to choose. I saw both Deschutes Obsidian Stout and New Belgium 1554 tap handles behind the bar. Since my first question to our waiter was, “is that Obsidian Stout on nitro?” and he answered that indeed it was, we both ordered one which got our visit off to a great start. We have enough experience at this place to know that it won’t be possible to share a single pizza so Karen ordered her pepperoni and mushroom, well done, and I ordered mine with bacon, pepperoni and roasted red peppers, also well done. The result was outstanding as usual and we will definitely be looking forward to doing it again on the return trip. After the pizza, I couldn’t get my mind off the 1554 that I hadn’t order earlier, so just to be fair I had one of them, too. We really enjoyed our conversations with the locals seated at the tables on either side of ours and with management and the staff. Karen made the usual request for them to open up a location near Friendswood but I suspect we will have to continue routing our travels through Amarillo for the foreseeable future. And I have no problem with that.

Posted in Beer, Pizza, Texas | Tagged Beer, Pizza, RV, Travel | Leave a comment

Another Buses, Beer and Pizza Tour Begins

Posted on June 17, 2013 by David and Karen

We’ve begun our summer adventure at our favorite RV park in the Dallas/Fort Worth area – The Vineyards Campground on Grapevine Lake in Grapevine, Texas. We found all three of our quests right next door in Southlake at The Mellow Mushroom, a national chain pizza joint. They’ve gutted the interior of this psychedelic VW bus and installed two dining tables. We opted for not waiting on a table in the dining room and instead sat ourselves at a table in the bar. That’s much better for seeing the extensive beer menu anyway. Although they had several Texas beers available, we both chose the Deschutes Obsidian Stout on nitro. Oh my, that is a good beer – so smooth and tasty! Thin crust is not the norm at the Mushroom but they do it on special request and they did a fine job for us. Yeah, I almost waited too long to snap this picture but you can be certain – there will be more, many more!

Posted in Beer, Pizza, Texas, VW Bus | Tagged Beer, Pizza, RV, Travel, VW Bus | Leave a comment

Friendswood

Posted on September 18, 2012 by David and Karen

We made it home last night about 9:45.It would sure be nice if Friendswood was on the north side of Houston so we wouldn’t have to drive through it to come or go. Oh well, we are home safe and rested and, be it ever so humble …

We got the motor home unloaded, The Bus in the garage, and will do our best to get caught up on all of the Tex-Mex we’ve been missing. We were away nearly three months and traveled five-thousand four-hundred fifty-six miles on this trip. We lost count of the artisan pizzas and brew pubs but if you’ve looked much at this blog you know there were plenty. There aren’t many of either here in the Houston area but we still have many reasons to say, we could live here … and do!

Posted in VW Bus | Tagged VW Bus | Leave a comment

Azle

Posted on September 17, 2012 by David and Karen

There is no pizza or beer in this update. This one’s all about The Bus. I made the purchase on June 30th and immediately drove it the 15 minutes to my brother Gary’s house where he so generously stored it in his pole barn for the duration of our trip. To understand just how noble this selfless act really was, consider this: My 38-year-old Volkswagen got the inside berth while Gary’s brand new tractor was parked outside. I love my brother! Well, our visit with Gary and Vanessa got cut short because he was on call that weekend and unfortunately he got called in to work just as we were all about to go have dinner. Bummer! At least I finally got to drive The Bus again although it was only eight miles to the RV park where we stayed. The next morning we were ready to move our three vehicles and ourselves down to Mansfield for a final night on the road and the chance to have dinner with daughter, Christina. I got The Bus up on the tow dolly and off we went, with me driving the RV and Karen driving the car. About a mile down the road Karen called me and said there was smoke coming out of the back end of The Bus. I immediately stopped, got out to check it out and quickly determined what had happened. Some idiot (me) had instinctively set the parking brake after driving it up on the dolly and the left rear wheel was smoking hot! I released the brake and off we went again. However, we hadn’t gone very far when Karen called again to inform me that the right wheel was smoking now. Good grief! We stopped again at the Valero station we happened to be next to and eventually eased the rig into their driveway around back. I unloaded The Bus from the tow dolly and drove it around the block to see if everything was working okay, which it was. I assumed that the wheels were just still hot from the stupid brake but decided not to risk doing major damage by towing it two-down. Instead I called U-Haul and found an auto transport trailer to rent one-way home. I called Gary and he came with his Blazer (with a trailer hitch) and took our tow dolly to his house to store (outside, of course). Did I mention how I love my brother? We eventually got the car trailer and got The Bus loaded up but since it was so late and we wouldn’t be able to fit into the RV park all hooked up like this, we decided we’d better drive on past Mansfield and get on home, which we did.

Posted in VW Bus | Tagged VW Bus | Leave a comment

Amarillo

Posted on September 15, 2012 by David and Karen

Well, this is where we started this blog. We wouldn’t come within a hundred miles of Amarillo without stopping in at 575 Pizzeria. Of course, there isn’t anything within a hundred miles of Amarillo but that’s beside the point. We got a recommendation for the Oasis RV Park from Marty and Mary Ann, fellow Texans that we met in Victor, Idaho, back in July. Turned out to be a very good choice. We quickly got the motor home set up, got cleaned up and headed right over for pizza. It’s good to get there early, especially on a Saturday night. On tap this evening they had both New Belgium 1554 and Deschutes Black Butte Porter. So, along with our delicious, best-pizza-ever, Karen chose the porter and I had the 1554. Karen worked hard explaining to every one of the staff how they need to tell the owner to open a 575 in Houston. If they did, we could live there!

Posted in Beer, Pizza | Tagged Beer, Pizza | Leave a comment

Rio Rancho

Posted on September 14, 2012 by David and Karen

It was only an overnight stop just north of Albuquerque. We even passed it by the first time and had to turn around in the Walmart parking lot. But the Stagecoach Stop RV Park was quite a relief for Peggy! Missed it with the camera but she actually did a happy-dance after her reunion with actual grass.

As I said, it was just overnight and we weren’t looking for much but what we found was the Turtle Mountain Brewing Company. We sampled their Red Rye, Pork & Brew Brown and Dark Knight Maduro Stout. There was nothing memorable about their brews but it just so happened that they have a great pizza oven and make a really good pizza. Knowing that we’d be in Amarillo the next day, feasting on 575 pizza, I opted for the quesadillas. Since Karen could eat pizza every day she ordered that. We were both very pleased with our meal. Peggy and Jake thought Rio Rancho was a great choice, too!

Posted in Beer, Pizza | Tagged Beer, Pizza | Leave a comment

Moab

Posted on September 12, 2012 by David and Karen

Poor Jake and Peggy. Canyonlands Campground is a large RV park with a lot of shade trees and a lot of RVers but not one blade of grass – not even in the pet walk! Of course any tree will do for Jake but Peggy, being more particular, waited until the next day to finally go in the dirt. They are both looking forward to having their own backyard again! The two best opportunities for good eats here both turned out to be mediocre at best but we came for the two national parks so we’re not disappointed. Our visits have been compressed into the late afternoon after work but we’ve seen a lot by driving and taking the shorter hikes. The first day we drove the short distance to Arches National Park which is just outside of Moab.
The photo above is the famous (at least in Utah) Delicate Arch and the photo to the left is what they call Park Avenue. The clouds kept the temps very pleasant but the pictures we took don’t compare in any way to the what it’s like actually being there. Hiking to Sand Dune Arch was like walking on the beach in the deep, fine, red sand. The photos look like they were done in sepia but they really are in full color. We finally got this picture once the goofy German with the green hair had moved along.
The next day we drove to the Island in the Sky entrance to Canyonlands National Park since The Needles entrance is a 3-hour round-trip drive away. Before you even get to the park entrance you see some remarkable scenery, like this formation named Monitor and Merrimac . The sign at the trail-head to Mesa Arch said it is a 30-minute round-trip hike but it didn’t take near that long, although it would have been worth it if it had.Here are some more photos of this amazing place.