My Big Fun Denver Day

Yesterday after the walking tour detailed in my last post, I realized there was a Rockies day game. Baseball is basically the only major sport I like, and I have a soft spot for Rockies games, having spent many a day sitting in the $4 Rockpile bleacher seats studying for the Colorado bar exam. (They used to be $3.)

So I grabbed a burrito and hotfooted it to Coors Field, only to stand in line for about a half hour to buy a ticket. I got inside to an unusually good seat for me, since the Rockpile was sold out:


and slathered myself with sunscreen, and immediately began to get irritated with the moron sitting two seats over, who couldn't shut his mouth the entire game. He was immensely entertaining to himself, and laughed at almost all of his own comments. He carried on a running monologue with all of the players, and butchered the names he didn't know how to pronounce. (Jackass somehow managed to make De La Rosa sound like an Italian name: dee-le-rozza.) He loudly yelled that he could pitch a strike better than De La Rosa. He poo-poohed 93mph fastballs. Jackass was in his late 50s or early 60s, and had more hair on the tops of his hands than most people have on their entire body. His father was sitting next to him, and even he tried to shush him throughout the game: "Tom, c'mon, just watch the game." Jackass Tom was having none of it.

There was a seven or eight year old kid on the other side of me who several times threw peanuts and peanut shells over the railing (where people were sitting below.) His idiot mother-figure was several seats away, occupied with two other kids who pretty clearly didn't give a shit about the baseball game. I hissed "QUIT THROWING PEANUTS" at him, and after shooting me a slightly scared but calculating look, he did indeed quit throwing peanuts. I don't think he was particularly scared of me, but it's a strange thing to have an adult who is a stranger tell you what to do, and he probably worried I'd narc him out to his mom. Which I gladly would have.

By the fifth inning, I couldn't deal with Jackass Tom and Throwing Peanut Kid anymore, so I moved down to the main concourse to stand in the shade and watch the game from practically field level:

It was a pretty meh game, with the Rockies never coming back from the 5-0 the Mets established in the first few innings. I left in the bottom of the 8th to beat the crowd, and watched the last bits on TV at Falling Rock Taphouse a block south. I had a powerful thirst for beer, since even in one of the five best beer cities in the country, the beer selection at Coors Field (go figure) is horrid:

It's a terrible picture, but basically the best option are the mediocre and overmarketed Fat Tire and Guinness, and it plummets from there.

Falling Rock has an amazing tap list, but it gets spendy fast, so after one I headed over to Wynkoop Brewing for happy hour ($3 imperial pints!) I was on a roll now, so I walked over to Great Divide for the 4 o'clock brewery tour and had a delicious Old Yeti Imperial Stout made with coffee beans.

A little full from beer, I wandered back to the hotel, and swam for about an hour in the great pool. I also took advantage of the decent jacuzzi, and the fantastic sauna. The steam room was entirely too hot, even for me.

Today is my last full day here, with more walking (maybe a trip to the REI flagship store to buy cycling shorts), more swimming, jacuzzi, and sauna, and more fantastic beer on the docket.

I have a ridiculously good life.