The Fort Collins Beer Festival is about more than just enjoying some of Colorado's finest different beers. It's a good excuse for alumni and others to get together and celebrate the summer, get f@#$ed up, and pass out on the stoop. We began drinking on the ride up for Fort Collins at about 10:00am and didn't stop until 2:00am the next morning.
Damn it's hot!
It must have been in the 80s when we arrived at the beer festival and probably got up into the 90s durring the middle of the day. These are not the ideal conditions for standing up in the direct sunlight all day long and drinking.... None the less, this is exactly what we did. We each paid $20 to start with. $6 of that was for admission and then you were given 14 tokens, each worth $1. Each token would get you about 1/2 a beer but if you were really nice they would give you a full beer for the same price.
Seeing old friends and meeting new ones
All of the guys I was up in Fort Collins with are C.S.U. alumni. I went to C.U. so aside from my friends I didn't see anyone I knew. But Steve, Lyle and Gerry were consistantly running into old friends from college. It was fun to meet so many new and different people. And of course, it's always a treat to watch Steve get somewhat sarcastic with people he doesn't remember after a few drinks.
The Routine
Basically from 11:30am until around 4:00pm the routine consisted of waiting in line for more beer and then going back out into the crowd and socializing a little. We were going to have to stop at 4:00pm though, because we had to get Lyle back to work at 5:00pm. Lyle has a tendancy to get himself fired from just about any job for either being lazy, or not showing up at all, or any one of a number of different reasons. Lyle was dead set on keeping this job.
Lyle calls in sick
Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was the gross amounts of alcohol. Maybe it was the prospects of meeting up with a group of women later in the evening. Something made Lyle snap and call in sick to his work for the evening. This may or may not have been the best for everyone involved. Steve, Lyle and I had all not brought any clothes to change into for the evening and worst of all had budgetted our drinking for a 4 hour binge marathon. We were about to add another 12 hours of drinking to this hot summer day.
Let the festivities begin
We headed to a bar off the square and moved from beer to mixed drinks. I almost spit up my drink after orderring a double red bull and vodka tall and was only charged $4. A drink like that would have been $10-$12 in Denver. Was it the heat? No.. Fort Collins is the poor man's friend when it comes to going out. With prices like that on booze, it's no wonder Fort Collins doesn't have a large homeless problem like Denver and Boulder. All the alcoholics can afford to drink!
Taking a break
Steve and I were fairly plowed. We decided to head over to a female clothing outfit and try on some of Fort Collins' finest indoor-outdoor eyewear. Indoor-outdoor sunglasses have always reminded me of eating cerial with water instead of milk. It's just not part of a complete breakfast. Unfortunately for Fort Collins, people have not yet learned the evils of this fashion product. These half-tinted accessories were worn by nearly 34% of the attendies at best estimate.
The latest in Summer Fashions
We were shortly joined by the rest of our crew to harrass the store employees and try on the latest in fashionwear for the summer of 2003. We were easily the best looking guys in womens clothing there all day long.
Brando eventually make it to beer fest
Brandon Kelly is notoriously tardy or absent from almost all group functions. When we first arrived at the Beer Festival we called Brando and he informed us that he was just waking up at some strange, undisclosed as of yet location in a mysterious loft after going out the night beforehand. He arrived and joined us at the beer fest with a half charged cell phone and no money only 1 hour before the event was over. We did manage to get off this group shot before the event was over however.
The End of Beer Fest
The beer fest was almost over. Steve, Tauren, Lyle, Gerry and I headed over to a pizza place at the end of the square and got some food. Well... actually that's who came out for food, but Lyle didn't actually eat. As a matter of fact Lyle didn't eat anything the whole day. That, mixed with hot summer heat and plenty of booze started to have an effect on Lyle.
Out for the evening
This is the last picture taken before we headed out for the evening's events. I left the camera in Gerry's car after this for fear that my state of inebriation would lead to my leaving it somewhere or breaking it. We went to a few bars in Fort Collins that night. In many people's own words they had never seen Lyle as drunk as he was that night. And Lyle gets very drunk, very often. He was kicked out of one bar and subsequently refused entrance to another. He was so drunk that he didn't mind that all of us went into the last bar of the evening, Studio 152, and just left him outside to walk around and meet people there. He did just fine though and we caught up with him after we left.
After Hours
We proceeded to leave the club scene with a few women and head back to their appartment for some late night hot tubbing. Lyle hurt himself trying to jump the fence blocking our way into the hottub area and the proceeded to get into the hot tub with 100% of his clothes on. It was not pretty.
Hangover drive home
Hungover from 16 hours of drinking and 2-3 hours of sleep we proceeded home the next day, prepared to spend the next 24 hours sitting around watching TV and talking about how we would never drink that much again... until next week when we head up to Glendoe to go boating, wake boarding, cliff diving, sailing, jet skiing and drinking.
