Page 15 - AAA Now! – AAA Central Penn – January/February 2021

TRAVEL
that make up a healthy farm and food system and specifically their production of goat cheese. You can even try your hand
at milking a goat and bottle feeding a baby goat. Using only sustainable ingredients grown on site, this ultimate farm to fork tasting experience is the real deal.
Pearl Street is the popular beating heart of downtown Boulder with four blocks of outdoor pedestrian mall blending restaurants, shops, gardens, fountains and public art sculptures around which weaves a Breweries Trail, a Coffee Trail and a Sweets Trail – something tasty for everyone!
Take a break from Boulder and travel not far to Fort Collins, nicknamed “the Napa of Beer.” More than 20 breweries, some quite famous, are based here. You are fortunate
to have reservations for lunch and a beer flight tasting at CooperSmith’s, the oldest brewpub in town. A guided tour
of a selection of nearby breweries brings you insights to their individual brewing processes as well as samples of their distinctive beverages paired with appropriate food. Worry not wine lovers, there is free time for Fort Collin’s historic River District of waterfront cafés, as well as art galleries, shops, live music venues and preserved natural areas.
A fresh September morning in the majestic scenic beauty of Rocky Mountain National Park is a treat for all your senses and a photographer’s paradise northwest of Boulder. Travel along Trail Ridge Road to be surrounded by sky-high peaks and sheer-cliff canyons softened by verdant valleys, pristine forests and native wildflowers. Keep your camera ready to capture potential views of elk and big horn sheep as well as marmots, pikas and ptarmigans.
In sharp contrast to this natural national park is Colorado’s metropolitan capital, Denver. A guided tour of the Capitol
Building and Larimer Square’s preserved architectural heritage provides insights to the Centennial State’s history. When
you are downtown and strolling along the 16th Street Mall’s 1.25-mile-long pedestrian district watch for the I.M. Pei- designed granite stone paving that resembles the scale pattern of the Western Diamondback Rattlesnake.
Garden of the Gods is a National Natural Landmark comprising 1,335 acres of public park in Colorado Springs. These towering red rock sandstone formations were
sacred to Native Americans and later named by awestruck photographers as “Balanced Rocks,” “Gateway,” and “Siamese Twins.” Poet and writer Helen Hunt Jackson wrote of the park in the 1880s with “You wind among rocks of every conceivable and inconceivable shape and size ... all bright red, all motionless and silent, with a strange look of having been just stopped and held back in the very climax of some supernatural catastrophe.”
Your active days and two-night stay in Colorado Springs also features nearby trips to some of the state’s most legendary sites. Reach the summit of Pikes Peak, at 14,115 feet, by riding aboard the Pikes Peak Cog Railway. Walk above the Royal Gorge canyon on its spanning bridge and descend 1,500 feet between rim and river on its incline railway. Celebrate these triumphs at the Fountain Creek Ranch where a tour reveals the real-life work required to sustain this region’s agriculture as it meets the demand for fresh food supplies. You, your fellow travelers and AAA Chairman Rob will discuss with a local chef which only-from-Colorado ingredients you prefer for an exclusively prepared farm to fork feast at the ranch. A private concert around the ranch’s campfire rounds up this farewell to Colorado with an evening under the stars.
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