Road trip 2: Electric Boogaloo: Day 5

Estes Park, CO to Aspen, CO
It was real cold last night but the river served as a giant white noise generator so I think I got a decent sleep. Made some tea toast and oatmeal for breakfast and packed up. Drove about 2 hours on the trail ridge road which basically takes you up several mountains and 4 different ecosystems. They open the road memorial day weekend - the mountains still all had snow on them. They were doing road work so we had a good amount of waiting - a big stretch of the road was one lane. Then when it is your turn to go you have to follow a pace car to the other side.
After the very scary drive we explored the west side of the park. There were a bunch of old frontier houses and they were all closed so it was kind of boring. Visited the visitors center on the way out where we watched part of a video that wasn't very informative.
Drive drive drive again.
We were now on our way to Aspen, and Adam recommended king over independence pass. Which was kind of like ridge road at the national park but a hell of a lot scarier. Independence pass couldn't care less about giving you guard rails. Plus you have to drive the whole thing at like 10mph just to ensure that you don't die. We made some stops to watch rock climbers and explore some caves.
Got to Aspen, met up with my friend Adam at weinerstube, an Austrian bar that stayed open for the sole purpose of Adams friends birthday celebration. Adam was already one boot of beer in when we got there. It's true: the beer was flowing like wine. I got a 1 liter 'warsteiner' and artemis got the most alcoholic long island iced tea that I've ever seen. It was all alcohol except for a splash of coke added as an afterthought. The bartender/owner was crazy. He would play the same 4 'party songs' over and over, encouraging every one to sing along and drink heavily, and even applied a bandage to my injured friends head. The owner even knew Arnold Schwarzenegger and he told me how Arnold eats at the restwurant every year when he visits aspen. We got some food after and walked backed to Adams apartment while he went to see some band play. We were exhausted; and we even got beds to sleep in!!