Day 9: Rock Springs, WY to Denver, CO

Our vacation is wearing down - I can tell by the fact that I only took 4 photos today (and 2 were the same shot)!

We mostly just drove today, east across Wyoming. There's nothing along hwy 80 in Wyoming. Once we got to Colorado we had a bit more fun. First stop was the visitor center in Fort Collins where we picked up our free Colorado t-shirts. Yes, they were free. Colorado is running an internet promotion this year where you request your shirt on their website and then when you actually arrive in Colorado you can pick up your shirt from a visitor center. I chose the "I'd rather be in a gallery" and Tom got the "tight loops and tight lines" shirt. They are really good quality shirts too!

After the visitor center we took a tour of the New Belgium brewery, also located in Fort Collins. The tour was really quite impressive - even from a non-beer drinker like myself. They even gave free beer samples (you got to choose 4 of their 10 beers to sample). Tom and I chose different beers and while I tasted all 8 we had samples of, Tom finished them. Needless to say, I did the driving from Fort Collins to Denver.

Tom posing by the New Belgium Brewery Sign

Once in Denver we met my cousin Allison and her boyfriend RJ for dinner. We had a good time catching up and hanging out.

We checked into a Super 8 in Westminster, CO (just outside of Denver) around 11 pm. We asked for a no smoking room, went upstairs to our room and upon opening the door were hit with a stench of cigarette smoke. Upon further inspection, the carpet even had cigarette burns in it even though they had tacked a "no smoking" sign to the door, they had not made any changes to the formerly smoking room (it had probably smoking for many years). Tom went back to the front desk and asked for a different room. They gave him one, which smelled much better......until Tom folded back the bed blankets. There was hair in the bed. Not just one hair, but several hairs. We went back to the front desk and told them we could not stay in their hotel and proceeded to go across the street to the Fairfield Inn where we had a restful night sleep.