September 21

I didn't give this post a very good name because it was basically a travel day, not much sightseeing.  We left Estes Park and drove to Fort Laramie, Wyoming.  We are there tonight at a little RV park in town.  This is pretty nice and very reasonable compared to Estes Park.  Linda is doing some laundry as I write this.

Fort Laramie is a National Historic Site and there are things to see here so tomorrow we will see them.  I'll have pictures of  what we see on the next post.

But the day wasn't a complete waste.  We drove by the Fort Collins Budweiser Brewery and wondered if they had tours on Sunday.  Linda checked that online as we drove and found that they did so we made a 180-degree turn and toured the brewery.

I had toured the Budweiser brewery in St. Louis  once but Linda has never done that.  It is a big operation, big cooking vats, big big fermenters and big aging tanks.  Here's a little factoid about the amount of  beer in one of the aging tanks and there are many of them:  If you drank 12 oz. from it every hour - equivalent to a 24 can case every day - it would take 166 years to empty one tank.  That's a lot of Bud!

Here are a few pictures of yesterday's drive on Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain NP and a few from the brewery.

Above the timberline

Also above the timberline on Trail Ridge Road

A Beaver pond-made wetland area in Rocky Mountain NP

Another view along Trail Ridge Road

Hops growing at the brewery.  This is just a little example garden for the benefit of tourists.  The hops are little cone-like fruits of the plant.  They are supported on rope or wires and they grow tall like this.

On of the large aging tanks at the brewery.