Golden, CO

Since my last update we have been living at the Clear Creek RV Park in Golden, CO.  Home of the original Coors Brewery.  My second day off since we've been here was Wednesday and I put it on my schedule to do a tour, but even Coors takes Tuesday and Wednesday off of tours.  Hopefully on Sunday I get to do the famed Coors brewery tour.

Wolfgang has adapted to the water..maybe a little too well.

In other recent news I sold the Jetta on August 15th, which was a great day.  It is very weird for it to be out of my life (I've discovered that I develop a significant attachment to vehicles that I have worked on for seemingly hundreds of hours), but quite a relief as it was definitely not the most reliable vehicle I've owned.  I hate to even think about how much money I put into that car.  Oh wait, I must not have learned anything and did the same thing with the westy.  The largest downside of the Jetta being gone is the resulting lack of separation between the only car we have and our home.  Only a problem when Jammie and I are both working and Wolfgang needs a ride to the Humboldt house to hang out.  Luckily Rande and Lexi have been very generous with the lending of their vehicles.  Strangely both their cars have the check engine light on and make lots of noises that they shouldn't.

I have been working 90% of the time we have been in Golden so I have not had much time to take it in, but due to some unforseen work cancellations I have had the past couple days to enjoy some of Golden.  I went fly fishing for the first time in at least a year on Wednesday, and although I didn't catch anything I feel like I got back into the groove a little bit and by the end I was comfortable casting and placing my fly.  Unfortunately during my fishing adventure one of my flip flops/fly fishing shoes broke and left me fighting to walk through what is a fairly large and fast moving "creek".

Jammie and I walked down the street to downtown and went to several shops looking for replacement sandals and settled on Golden River Sports, which in addition to flip flops carried fly fishing and kayaking equipment.  I am rather reserved, but I've heard the best thing to do for fly fishing is to talk to someone at a local shop to find out when where and what to use when fishing.  I am glad I stepped up and asked the guy that was working as he said he had some good advice and also managed to sell me on $8 worth of flies.

I worked yesterday and although I got back before dark it was very windy and stormy and not at all appropriate for fishing.  I rode the moped to work yesterday and will today too, the pinto has become the primary mode of transportation and I have to say I love it.  It is not the fastest as my commute yesterday was a good 40 minutes, but I went to work from Golden and back on less than 1 gallon of gas.  I got a few raindrops on the way home but luckily it didn't open up as it is known to do...

Jammie and I woke up at 7:30 yesterday morning to go talk to the woman at the campground front office.  Yesterday was day 14 of a 14 day maximum stay at the campground (I have to say I have been working so much that it really only feels like we've been here a week, August has flown by.)  We had spoken to her the evening before after we realized it was our last day.  We created conversation over a minor RV collision that had occurred about an hour before, of course it was her fault that the dude backed into the 5th wheel next to his site.  This morning she was kind enough to 'reset' our stay period and we paid for 5 more days, quite the relief as we really like it here and I just got the right flies to hit the brown trout on the Clear Creek.   My last day of work will be Monday, and regardless of how weird that is, we will be headed out of CO very soon.

I know, you're saying to yourself, 'wow this update is crazy long'...Its been a great couple weeks, and that's why I like Golden and Clear Creek RV Park.  On Wednesday Jammie convinced me to go tubing, and although the creek is freezing cold, IT WAS AWESOME,  trout unlimited and Coors (of course) recently partnered to rebuild a mile of the creek, and they have created some great fishing holes and tubing/kayaking chutes.  It was a lot of fun to cruise (fairly quickly) down the creek and occasionally speed through a little white water chute.

I leave you with one last bit.   Richard and Joneel Harris from Denton TX.  They have been here a little over a week, and Jammie (of course) was the first to interface with them.  They have a beautiful Prevost 40' Coach, they seem like the cool retired people that aren't rolling in dough (both retired from University of North Texas) but found something they really enjoy.  They tow around a H3 hummer and go off-roading all the time, they also carry a sweet 1980s BMW motorcycle with a sidecar for their dog.  They have a Basenji dog, which is an African breed that is very similar to Wolfgang.  Their dog doesn't like most dogs, but gets along with Wolfman as long as there isn't food nearby or the Harris' aren't petting Wolfgang.  I was introduced to them Wednesday night, we were walking back from talking to the campground lady and they invited us to stop for a beer, or vodka tonic, you can guess who drinks what.  A few miller lites later and they had invited us out to dinner.  It was a great time and ironically ended up going to the same place that Jammie and I went for lunch, luckily their menu is very diverse.

I'll post a picture of their 'coach' in the next update.

After work last night, Jammie told me they invited us out to dinner again, we didn't go to dinner with them but met up later at a local bar where ladies drink free after 9, which also happened to be overflowing with freshly returned Colorado School of Mines students.  Afterwards we went to Woody's wood fired pizza where again they insisted on buying, but it was a really fun time with a couple much older, but cooler couple than you could imagine.  They told us of their old volkswagens they've had throughout the years as well as their various RVs and travels.  We find that everyone is either interested in our dog, our camper or the tent attached to the camper.. sometimes all three ;)


I have more great pictures on the camera that I will post in the next few days...

P.S.  I haven't made it to Golden City Brewing (the second largest brewery in Golden) yet, but I got to try their red ale at Woody's Last night.  I have to say that it was a pretty darn good beer.  A good balanced red, Rande would probably like it.  I hope to make it to the second largest brewery in the next couple days as well.