when I was researching

things to do, I knew I wanted to go to Mount Evans.  Mount Evans Scenic Byway has the highest paved road in North America.  I was nervous but I wanted to see.  Guess what.  It doesn't open until Memorial Day weekend.  There was also a lake I wanted to see, Echo Lake.  It's on that route.  Guess what, I think it was closed too.  The fact they had gotten a lot of snow two weeks before we came probably didn't help matters.  I told Cosme we had time and I wanted to go and see how far we could get.  So we set off for Idaho Springs.  On the way I saw a sign for the Buffalo Bill Grave and Museum.  We stopped.  We actually didn't even make it into the museum.  We headed straight up to the grave and then into the gift shop.

I really liked this sign.

We bought a few things, including a pound of fudge (chocolate, chocolate/walnut, chocolate/pecan praline and peanut butter).  My favorite was the peanut butter.  We went out to take a few pictures and then got back on the road to Idaho Springs.  We turned left off the highway and started up the mountain.  One thing I must do in certain situations (driving up mountains and over water) is turn on the tunnel vision.  Nothing beside me exists.  I only see the road ahead of me.  In this case, I also found myself leaning towards the non-cliff side of the road... as if my weight would keep the car from falling off the mountain.  We were getting high, really high.  I still hadn't seen any signs leading us to Echo Lake.  At this point I started hearing noises from Cosme.  I really didn't need to hear any groans with some four-letter words sprinkled in, especially coming from him.  He's the daring, thrill seeking one of the two of us.  My hands and feet were already sweating and I was totally tense with my breathing getting louder and deeper.  I told him to feel my hands and grabbed his... THEY WERE POURING SWEAT.  At this point I knew I could NOT look away to see what was over there (or more like what wasn't over there).  I went into panic mode.  I had to turn around and get down from there.  I did the roughest but most cautious three-point-turn and escaped from that mountain.  There are no pictures.  There was going to be one but I just needed to leave.  I looked and 78 degrees had turned to 48 degrees.  I checked because I had to crack the window to dry my hands.  On the way down I started hearing sirens.  Police cars with an ambulance and fire truck were headed up the mountain.  I don't know what happened up there but I'm happy to say it didn't involve me.

We got back down to the highway and now had plenty of time to kill.  We decided to go to the Coors Brewery.  I don't drink beer and Cosme doesn't drink Coors.  We figured it would still be interesting.  We got there and took the tour.  It wasn't very interesting.  Here's the one picture I took.

I was expecting more of a "How It's Made" episode and it wasn't.  We did try the beer and Cosme actually found one he liked, Blue Moon Belgian White Ale.  I tried Killian's Irish Red and it tasted like beer.  I think the Blue Bell tour is more my style.

After the tour we stopped for lunch at Bob's Atomic Burger and then headed back to the hotel to rest before that night's concert.  After going to Bubba Gump's, we headed to the concert.  The concert was a lot of fun and we got back to the hotel around 1:00.

Other than falling asleep and heading to the airport the next day, that was it.  We had a lot of fun in Colorado.