Rocky Mountain High....Colorado

So upon leaving good ol' Nebraska, we headed to Denver to stay with our friend, Chris, in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. He is living in the city for the summer. We immediately found parking in front of his condo, which is a rare occurrence in ANY New Jersey town with a substantial population. Having visited Denver once before, this overnight stay cemented my good feeling about it. It's such a pretty, clean city with spectacular views of the Rocky Mountains.
They have a nice, walkable downtown with a pedestrian marketplace they've carved out of their 16th street. You can even hop on a free bus to get there! Chris took us to Falling Rock, which had some really great brews. (I enjoyed their Spaten.) He also took us to Snarf's, where I had a delicious banana, peanut butter and honey sandwich.
Like Pittsburgh and Minneapolis, Denver had a few hip, pretty neighborhoods with gorgeous old houses right in the heart of the city. It's hard to pick a favorite place that I've visited so far because they've all been so different (so I won't) but I could really see myself living in Denver.
After lunch on our second day, we headed out and dropped off our resumes at the Arvada Center (and dropped off the props Theatre West used for South Pacific!). From there, we drove to Golden and took a free tour of the Coors Brewery. We even got free tastes of beer! Neither of us even really drink Coors but hey, it was free. I must say that I was impressed by the fact that the entire tour was free. We even got a mini tour of the town. Because we hadn't spent any money, we did drop $40 on souvenirs. I mean, but come on, we had a free tour and free beer.
After our 'free' afternoon, we camped at Golden Gate State Park where it rained (AGAIN) and the campers next to us were smoking pot. We made spaghettios for dinner.
The next morning, we drove to Rocky Mountain National Park and camped in Moraine Campground. On the way, we stopped in a GREAT little town nestled in a valley called Nederland. Filled with hippies and Subarus. (By the way, I think it may be a law that in order to live in Colorado and be cool, one must be the owner of some sort of Subaru station wagon, preferably with a ski rack on top and lots of left-leaning political bumper stickers.)
Oh, and our Annual Park Pass really was worth it's weight. The admission for Rocky Mtn was $20 alone! There were, alas, no showers but the compost toilets around the corner from our site were kept spotless!
We hiked up Deer Mountain (elev. 10,007) and it was long and steep but I can say that I hiked up a mountain in the Rocky Mountains. That night it rained (AGAIN!!!! We are FOUR FOR FOUR!) and we were confined to our tent.
This morning, we breakfasted in Estes Park (which, my mother tells me, I visited in utero) at Egg & I. Normally, I get poached eggs and corned beef hash whenever I go out for breakfast but since Colorado seems so healthy, I went for their Berry-ola Oatmeal. Amazing.

On our way out, we nearly got rear ended pulling off into Colorado Cherry Company because of their sign that said "Free Samples". (We get really excited about free stuff.)
And so, after a long drive into the rolling, velvety hills of Wyoming, here we are, in Lander. Not much to report except that I've had my first real shower (with water and all) in two days. Tomorrow, we leave for Yellowstone.