Dietz Summer Road Trip

How awesome it was to wake up this morning on the 4th of July camping at a National Park. We are so lucky to be afforded this opportunity to travel the country and see all of these amazing things. 

In true American fashion we slept in today. No alarms set, no plans made. We woke up around 8am which isn’t really sleeping in my most people’s standards, but for us it was nice!We Leisurely   woke up, made cooler/tea ate breakfast, dried out the tarp and tent. We were showered, put on some relatively “nice” clothes and headed to Durango. 
Durango is about 45 minutes away from Mesa Verde and was an old railway stop for miners headed up into the San Juan mountains for mining. It’s a really cool little town with a sweet little “Main Street”. It has some saloons that look and feel like they might of back in the late 1800’s. 
  
  
We settled on Steamworks Brewery for lunch. This place was awesome with some great beer and food. John got the French dip which was brisket and bacon, and the sampler. Danielle got a Quinoa Burger, #america.  
 

After lunch we walked around Downtown, went into some of the stores and enjoyed seeing everyone decked out in their Red, White, and Blue.  We walked a few blocks town of town to Animas Brewery, thoughtfully named after the Animas River that comes through town. It was pretty good! 

We walked back into town past the little “Family Fun” thing they had set up in the plaza and on to Carver Brewing Company on Main Street. The good thing about summer time is they have plenty of Hefeweizen on tap.  We also noticed that a lot of the breweries/bars around here advertise their bartenders as being “Cicerone ® Certified Beer Servers”. Something we have never really seen before and when we asked they explained it was a 3 tier rating scale for beer servers. With the highest requiring an oral/written exam and a tasting. I’m assuming it would be the Beer version of a Master Sommelier. Carver Brewing Company had a sweet outdoor patio with shade and a misting fan. 
  
After Carver Brewery we went outside to Main Street and watched a sweet parade. Little different from back home, no tractors. But plenty of horses. Our favorite were the shriner on the little motorizerd wagons. 
   
    
    
   
After the parade we went back to Carver Street to avoid the rain and bid some time before the fireworks. We got Chicken Stew and some sort of cherry almond salad. Plus some All American Creme brûlée. 
  

  
It was still raining pretty heavy at 8:30pm so we were convinced the fireworks were not going to happen. We ran back to our car getting soaked and headed back towards Mesa Verde. Just as we did the fireworks started! So we pulled off to the side of the road and watched them from the comfor of the being inside the truck. 
  

Happy 4Th of July! Hope it was a great one. Tomorrow we head into Utah for the next week!