Editor's note: Alexandra Pecci lives in Plaistow, N.H., with her husband, Brian. This is the final installment in a four-week look at some of the places they visited on their 1,600-mile road trip from California to Colorado last month.
In Denver and beyond, we chased three of America's favorite pastimes: baseball, beer and cold-hard cash. It was a fitting end to our road trip and homage to an old mining region where anyone could tap the Rocky Mountains and strike it rich.
We traveled through the Rockies backward, at least from a pioneer's point of view, heading east from Utah into Denver, a city as clean and easy to navigate as it is pretty, with wide streets set up in a sensible grid and friendly, smiling residents.
Before checking into our hotel, Brian and I headed to Coors Field to buy tickets for that night's baseball game. I worried it might be sold out, since the Rockies were in the World Series the year before.
"Are there tickets left for the game tonight?" I asked the man at the box office.
"Of course," he said, as if I'd inquired whether Pikes Peak was still standing. "Where would you like to sit?"
We opted for $10 seats, a step up from the "Rock Pile," which gets you seats on backless wooden benches for $5. We even bought a $10 parking ticket in advance, a far cry from the tangle of streets and cheats in the area around Fenway.
At the game, our seats were fantastic, hanging over right field with a perfect, unobstructed view of both sets of Rockies: those in baseball uniforms and those towering beyond the city.
The next morning, we took a free, half-hour tour of the Denver Mint, which makes the coins slated for circulation west of the Mississippi. The tour is slick and quick, passing though production floors and historical exhibits before depositing visitors in the gift shop.
After touring the Mint, we got a taste of the Rockies at the Coors Brewing Company in Golden, about 15 miles from Denver. A former gold-rush town, the biggest draw to Golden now is the Coors factory, which offers free, self-guided tours of its brewery. The tours end in the lounge, where bartenders serve up to three free glasses of Coors-brand beer.
Buses take visitors back and forth between the factory and a main parking area. In true prospector fashion, the bus driver handed out "Golden Tickets" on the ride back, which offered deals and discounts at participating restaurants and shops and ensured that we stayed in town long enough to spend some money.
We were greeted with a "Howdy Folks!" on a huge wooden arch that stretched over Washington Avenue in the heart of downtown, and ate at the Blue Canyon Bar and Grill. I had the best barbecue pork sandwich I'd ever eaten ($7.95), along with fried pickles ($6.95) and a poblano burger for Brian ($8.79).
And with that, we traded our rental car for a plane bound for Boston, the open road for the real world, and gave one last howdy to the great American West.
What to do
The Colorado Rockies play at Coors Field at 20th and Blake streets in Denver. Tickets are $5 and up.
Plan ahead if you want to tour the Denver Mint on 320 West Colfax Ave. by visiting its Web site at USMint.gov and clicking on tours. Make reservations far in advance if you can: They are required for the free tours, which start on the hour from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on weekdays. Tours fill up weeks in advance, so if you don't have reservations, be prepared to wait in a standby line. Visitors also can't bring anything into the Mint, including purses, so be prepared. Check the Web site for more details.
Free tours of the Coors Brewing Company start at the corner of 13th and Ford streets in Golden, Colo., and include samples for those 21 and older. The self-guided tours run 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Thursday through Monday. On Sundays, tours begin at noon. Call 866-812-2337 for more information.
DAY TRIPS
FINAL LEG: Dever and Golden, Colo.
