Ethan Driving Lessons

It’s fun having somebody to drive you around, I’m finding. Since getting his permit, Ethan has logged a little over 5 hours of driving of the 50 that he needs to log by June next year in order to obtain his driver’s license. When he started driving, and after seeing the number of hours he would have to drive, I told him that there were over 300 breweries in Colorado, and the way he was going to learn how to drive was to take me to as many of them as he could… Last night he told me that it was time to drive, and that I should grab my Pub Pass and we would stop for a beer somewhere. Man, that kid knows how to convince me!

After consulting Google on the closest establishments on the pass and finding that they were closed on Sunday nights, I decided that a little country driving was in order. Give him a chance to get it up to 55 miles per hour and encounter 2 way traffic. So we headed east. If you are unfamiliar with Colorado, east of Aurora is pretty much the end of the world. We are in a high desert, so beyond Gun Club Road, you are pretty much in the desert.

For about 45 minutes we meandered through country highways seeing some farm houses, some trailers in the middle of nowhere, and a lot of fenced off land owned by Conoco Phillips. We even saw a mining company. I suppose natural resources are a big part of the Colorado economy…

One nice part of having somebody drive you is that you get to take in the different sights. Here is a photo I snapped out the front window on the way back to civilization. The photo doesn’t really do it justice - it was pretty breathtaking. Ethan commented that I am a very curious person when I am a passenger… I told him that I’m very curious even when I’m a driver - it’s just safer for me to look longer when I’m the passenger!

After getting back into town, as a symbolic gesture, I had him pull off onto Reservoir Road and into Two 22 Brewing where I grabbed a pint, he grabbed some water, and we spent about 20 minutes enjoying the atmosphere before heading home for the evening.

I sort of like the idea of a theme for learning something. This gives us reasons to get out driving, and as a side benefit, I get to have some beers from places I might not otherwise get to go…