Elk dogs, Thor's wrath, dobrato, the Rockies and a glorious, titanium ark of art. The finale of Marcel's 1,212-mile journey was as legendary as the mountains around it.

The people have spoken.

I'm the furthest thing on earth from a petrol-head – all I can tell you about the car I drive at home is that it's brown – but I feel a twinge of sadness as the three of us gather our bags from the boot/trunk for the last time.

Tomorrow Andy and I will fly back to London, and Jacob returns to Las Vegas.

The odometer read 12,388 miles when we picked the car up last Sunday; today it reads 13,600. That's a trip of 1.212 miles.

Travelmath.com figures that the distance between Las Vegas and Denver is 749 miles. Our journey was closer to twice that.

Still, this was never about joining the two points on a map by the shortest distance possible.

I'm meeting the guys for dinner in an hour. We'll be bidding you a virtual farewell and reflecting on the trip then.

For the uninitiated, this Denver delicacy consists of bull calf testicles, usually deep-fried, and it's served up everywhere from music festivals to baseball games to the finest restaurants of the Rockies. 

Most importantly, the dish has a bunch of great nicknames, like "cowboy caviar", "Montana tendergroins", "dusted nuts", "bull fries" and "swinging beef".

Daniel Hernandez says Marcel should try them. PhilDC disagrees. To eat, or not to eat? 

Celebrating with a flagon of ale at the end of a long journey is a hallowed tradition among travelers, and it's doubtful that the guys will abstain after so many hours on the road. Thankfully, there's been no dearth of commentary about the varied breweries of Denver – and so we present the readers' guide.

Wynkoop: The oldest brewery in the city and located in Denver's popular LoDo neighborhood (the lowest point of downtown, of course); recommended by the generous FrankDeFord and seconded by DrGee.

My Brother's Bar: Apparently a saloon since the 1880s and called "the real thing" by a Denver daily, FrankDeFord has a warning about this bar, "No sign, ask for directions."

The Great Divide Brewery: gomezcat says that although open only until 8pm, this brewery should "appeal to real ale fans."

Falling Rock Taphouse: PhilDC says "this is probably the best beer bar in the USA (I kid you not)," which sounds awful serious – perhaps Marcel should listen.

Forest Room 5: But GaryCrant dissents, saying Forest Room is "the best bar in Denver." It has animations on its site and an art gallery on the grounds, so they don't seem to be kidding around either.

Providing a mini-guide below the line, noregtod lists the Rackhouse Pub for home-distilled whiskey, the hipsterish Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project for a microbrewery experience, and Euclid Hall for your classy – yet hardly square – craft beer experience.

And we'll let DrGee prescribe solo:

DrGee

26 July 2013 8:23pm

I can recommend Denver for the brewpubs. When we were there in May we sampled the delights of Rock Bottom, Wynkoop, Great Divide, Breckenridge, Denver Beer, Denver Chophouse. Also worth popping in to Falling Rock Tap House.

Well they did say we needed to drink plenty of fluids at that altitude.

This is "Mud Woman Rolls On", by Roxanne Swentzell.

I'm glad we came here. Up on the third floor is a whole gallery of powerful works, much of it full of justified anger at the raw deal Native Americans got at the hands of the European settlers.

Another thing: we were lucky coming today. The museum is open late on the last Friday of each month, and there are special events, talks, workshops, a bar, and free food.

This is a lovely airy gallery which houses Native American art from Florida to Alaska. It's beautiful, fascinating stuff and, as Andy points out, it's poignant seeing it after the trip we just made.

"Everywhere we've been was theirs," he muses, "but there wasn't a trace of them left, except at Mesa Verde."

With special thanks to trimphone and BritChickinCO for continued contributions below the line.

Had a look at the Nick Cave exhibition (not that Nick Cave) now crossing over to look at the Native American art in another building – as per the recommendation of Holly Hunt.

After Marcel finishes feasting on the exhibitions at Denver's Art Museum, he'll head to Jax for dinner; in the meantime, here's a shout to many of the restaurants suggested by readers. Bars to follow.

The Buckhorn Exchange: Denver's oldest restaurant, featuring alligator tail, buffalo sausage, and much more. @danielgene advises to save room for the specialty.

Park Tavern: Per jennS29, "tasty petit dejeuner fare with a nice patio in the chill district of Cap Hill."

The Fort: For a bit of historical dining, ID9721384 tells us this is"one of the earliest establishments for the "mountain men" in the southern part of the state. The Fort played host to the Summit of the Eight for the final dinner with Clinton, Kohl, Blair, Yeltsin, et al." The restaurant, meanwhile, bills itself the "essence of Colorado", which seems like quite a lofty thing to say, given how impressive – and literally lofty – Colorado is.

Potager: Recommended by jennS29, who describes it as "a wonderfully unique, homegrown dinner in a classy European atmosphere."

Irish Snug: Home to jennS29's favorite hot toddy and shepherd's pie, complete with live Irish music on the weekends.

And for some faster fare:

Pinche Tacos: @AnnaHewson's equation for good tacos: "Lengua Taco = Yummm!!" It'll leave you tongue-tied, that one.

Park Burger: High-praise dining, indeed: @AnnaHewson "best hamburgers in the world."

Beau Jo's: A pizza joint committed to wind power and with a mission to "reshape the waistlines of food lovers the world over". 

FrankDeFord has challenged us to take on the 14er. Behold its monstrous creation.

It doesn't close at 8 tonight, it closes at 10! Fantastic! Maybe I'll cancel that dinner reservation and stay here all evening ENJOYING THE ART.

We're hitting the freeways right on Friday rush hour, but can't really complain: traffic's been negligible throughout this trip. I think we saw more cars in the last five minutes than we did in the previous five days put together.

Even after the prolonged hot dog stop, it turns out we haven't missed the gallery. It's open late on Fridays, until 8pm.

That's a relief!

And here it is, spread out in front of us as we make the last descent on 285 and the Great Plains beyond it are completely flat. We want mountains!

Marcel has almost arrived in Denver, the end point of his 1,000-mile road trip – there have been phenomenal reader tips throughout, but too little time and too much ground for him to reach them all. As such, we have an ongoing List of Amazing Things We Don't Have Time to Do. 

Yesterday we covered Great Sand Dunes National Park, ghost towns, Durango's microbreweries, and its narrow gauge train to Silverton. 

Ancient Cortez: We just missed it! lowtide and ukboy tell us that Kelly Place B&B is on an "archaeological preserve, and well worth the trek into McElmo Canyon. Homemade cookies apparently come with your stay amid Anasazi kivas on the vast expanse of wilderness. 

Boulder: SiccarPoint is quite enthusiastic about this city:

Boulder! Go to Boulder! See the flatirons! Eat the hippy foods! Wander the university! Smell the pungent clouds of pot smoke by the creek! Visit the Boulder Bookshop! Look at the fancy historic houses west of the Mall!

The restaurants look excellent (five are included with Denver's 25 best restaurants, despite not being in Denver). The independent bookshop looks like a gigantic literary paradise. Historic Pearl Street seems a modern incarnation of the gold town this once was. The Flatirons do indeed look stunning (thanks, Wiki). 

We've never been so sorry about the schedule, SiccarPoint.

Garden of the Gods: near Colorado Springs, Wiki tells us that this public park is full of bizarre rock formations and features prominently in Native American oral traditions. The poet Helen Hunt Jackson said that the rocks have "a strange look of having been just stopped and held back in the very climax of some supernatural catastrophe". Hat tip to @skydogtravels.

Grand Junction & Colorado National Monument: From eshockley, who describes the monument as "not a statute, like many think, but a beautiful collection of canyons and monoliths that doesn't take long to drive through." Grand Junction, meanwhile, is given this resounding endorsement, complete with specifics:

"nine wineries, a brewery and a distillery in nearby Palisade, a serpentine Main Street with great food (Il Bistro for Italian, Le Rouge for French, Suehiro's for sushi, Pablo's Pizza for artisan pie, Dream Cafe for breakfast) and cool features like fountains and a mock monolith to crawl on."

And for something completely different, @danielgene suggests trying to relax on the world's largest rocking chair, aka 'The Route 66 Rocker'.

We're looking for a place to stay in Denver. Any recommendations?

We made a 9pm booking at Jax, following lulu83's tip. If all goes to plan, we'll be saying farewell from there.

Time to buckle up and head for Denver. I certainly hope we can make it before the art gallery closes. Then we'll do a quick tour of
the city before our valedictory dinner. Only 46 miles to go...

Thanks to FrankDeFord, @bix783, and politicalMomo. Keep 'em coming!

Daniel Hernandez flagged up this hot dog-shaped hot dog restaurant just outside Bailey.

We do need a little sustenance to get us to Denver. Andy and Jacob ordered buffalo dog. Mine's elk and jalapeno. Look away now if you're tired of pictures of food. In a minute, we're going to an art gallery.

Curving east through the valley towards Denver, there's silence in the car as we drink in the views of the mountains.

We will miss you, Colorado.

We're chuckling over a sign we saw in the Silver Bean yesterday. It was a picture of a smiling 1950s executive male under the caption: "All complaints handled by Heywood Jablome."

Mikevaughan and ukboy have pointed out that Fairplay was Matt Stone and Trey Parker's inspiration for the setting of South Park, a show the Guardian's Jonathan Jones called the "Saviour of US TV":

It was like manna in the desert. The obscenely funny cartoon radiated intelligence and humanity. Its brightly coloured cut-out figures seemed so much more three-dimensional than some of the "real" people on other channels.

South Park endures but it does not stay the same. Cartman has become more monstrous over the years. His school friends now detest him. But the show does not observe any dramatic unities: one moment it plays at being a realistic comedy about kids (for adults), then it widens out to include piracy in east Africa or to launch an attack on bikers.

I wish I could go into more detail about the humour, but as it says at the start of every episode, South Park is not suitable for anyone. So I'll leave you with the image of Mickey Mouse as a corporate thug beating people up [NSFW: Language, of course] in an episode that also features ... no, that's not appropriate.

Look, it's funny – if you have no standards, which apparently I don't.

Colorado's tourism office is quick to point out that the real South Park – a huge region of forests, rivers and mountains – "bears little resemblance" to the show. Sorry, all you manbearpig hunters. 

We've stopped briefly in Fairplay for a comfort break. High summer and there are still patches of snow on the mountains!

One side-effect of the nasty energy drinks is that they've taken away our appetites so no lunch recommendations required today! We'll make up for it in Denver.

@joverity tweeted that there's been too much talk of food, music and landscapes and not enough art. Luckily Jacob managed to snap a few artworks in the gift shop at Monarch Pass. These are for the art-lovers out there. Enjoy!

This isn't happening. The attendant just drove off to rescue the 12 people stuck on top of the mountain. It turns out that lightning bolt did hit the cable! They won't know if it's shorted until they start it up again, but there are more thunderstorms on the way. I think Nature is giving us an unequivocal "No!".

We actually bypassed Salida and are heading directly north. We were swayed by the arguments in favour of 285 all the way.

I've just seen a sign saying 120 miles to Denver!

Even as the cable car does not.

We may have to give in to my family's demands.

Thank God for our commenters – this one's for davelavelle below the line. Send us more and we'll get a playlist going!

Marcel and the boys are waiting for Thor's anger to abate, and for the tramway cable car to reopen - they surely can't pass up the chance to see the Continental Divide.

Meanwhile, here's a bit about that thin Colorado air. 

The city of Denver, which ought to know a bit about these things, being the Mile-High City, generously provides some tips for adjusting to altitude on their website:

Water, followed by more water:

Drinking plenty of water is the number one way to help your body adjust easily to our higher altitude. The low humidity in Colorado keeps the air dry, like the desert, so you need about twice as much water here as you would drink at home.

Watch what you drink:

In rarified air, golf balls go 10% farther… and so do cocktails. Alcoholic drinks pack more of a wallop than at sea level.

Bananas (potassium):

Foods such as broccoli, bananas, avocado, cantaloupe, celery, greens, bran, chocolate, granola, dates, dried fruit, potatoes and tomatoes will help you replenish electrolytes.

Pack for the sun: With less water vapour in the air … the sky really is bluer in Colorado. But there's 25% less protection from the sun. Denver receives over 300 days of sunshine each year …

Pack for the cold: Because [it's] is closer to the sun, it can feel much warmer than the actual temperature during the daytime, but then become very chilly after sundown …

The Denver Post, meanwhile, recommends much of the same, plus gingko and garlic soup, which is reportedly offered by sherpas in Nepal – and available here in the States, unlike the coca tea used to combat altitude sickness in the Andes.

This cable car ride is beginning to look ill-starred.

I take that back. A massive bolt of lightning just touched down seemingly in the parking lot. I have antagonised Thor with my frivolous comments.

Elevation: 11,312ft.

Location: On the Continental Divide at the southern end of the Sawatch Range between Gunnison and Salida.

Other guff: Widely considered one of the most scenic in Colorado, offering a panoramic view of the southern end of the Sawatch Range from the summit. During the summer, an aerial tram from the parking lot at the summit carries visitors to the top of Monarch Ridge above the pass (at 12,000ft), allowing a wider view of the surrounding peaks. FAIL.

They call it a tramway, I call it a cable car. It goes up to 12,000 feet, but as it's raining and thundering, they've closed it temporarily. The attendant says there's a risk of lightning striking the gondola. Lightning, schmigtning, let us on!

We're in Monarch Pass at an elevation of 11,312 feet. We feel lightheaded from the altitude and jittery from the ill-advised energy drink.

There's a tramway from here to the top of the Continental Divide. It takes 15 minutes and costs 10 bucks. I'm going to grab my coat - it's cold up here - and buy a ticket.

Heading though Gunnison National Forest with the Cochetopa Hills looming in the distance. We are seven miles from Monarch Pass. Despite tasting like embalming fluid the five-hour energy drinks are starting to take effect.

@bix783 recommends the 285 route for the views from Kenosha Pass

Kenosha Pass: elevation 10,000ft.

Location: Rocky Mountains southwest of Denver, northeast of the town of Fairplay.

History: In the 19th century the pass was used by white trappers to traverse the Front Range. During gold rush of the 1860s, it was used by prospectors heading to gold fields at the headwaters of the South Platte near Fairplay. During the Colorado Silver Boom, the pass became one of the main routes for immigrants to the mining towns of Leadville, Breckenridge, and Aspen.

Andy is flagging after his heroic late-night drive yesterday. I have bought us all scary looking energy drinks. "Basically a bunch of vitamin B12," according to the bloke in the gas station.

Route manouevres below the line...we love a good directions debate. And roadworks alerts.

Any advances?

mikevaughan

26 July 2013 6:18pm

Gunnison to I70 seems quite a long way round. Leadville, sign repainted Deadville when I was there a couple of years ago, is an ex mining town which has definitely seen better days, it even has an Opera House. On 285 you get to Fairplay which is allegedly the town on which South Park was based. from FairPlay you could stay on 285 or 9 up through Breckenridge. From Breck you could take the Boreas pass (only open in Summer) back on to 285 as a fun detour.

Just bumped into Randy the taxidermist in the gas station. He supports @ukboy's idea of going through Leadville and then getting onto I-70. We don't need to make a final decision until we reach Poncha Springs in 40 miles.

We're at that tricky stage again, where a choice has to be made about routes to take to Denver.

Highway (I-70)? Or byway (50 to 285)?

@ukboy - who has been doing sterling map-reading on our part - suggests a bit of both. What's not to like about a compromise:

Rt 50 would take you through Gunnison, and then up over Monarch Pass. Some good food options in Salida, and then onto 285. Hot springs options at Mt Princeton or Cottonwood pass are great. Staying on 285 you would go through the real South Park (park meaning a wide open mountain valley in this case). This is definitely prettier if you have time, but I70 is scenic too. Less big towns on 50/285 for sure. (Oh, not to be too complicated but there is a cutoff to get up to I70 at Buena Vista to head up to I70 thru Leadville).

Just buying some fruit and dried chillis from Jocelyne Penales then we're leaving Gunnison. Honestly.

We're finding it hard to leave Gunnison.

This is an only-in-America kind of town. Down the road, I'm in Traders Rendezvous, which specialises in hunting trophies, rifles and stuffed animals. You can pick up an elk's head for $795, an entire zebra for $2,495, and a small black bear for $1,495.

The owner, Randy Clark, tells me some of the demand comes from bars, "but mostly it's people decorating their homes. They want to do it in a lodge style."

He says that a lot of his stock ends up in big lodge-style houses over in Crested Butte, which is a resort town in Gunnison County.

As we seem to be on something of a musical bent this morning, we're putting up reader @WJONeil's request for Del McCoury's All Aboard. It's not about Colorado, as far as we can tell. It's not about cars. But it is about a journey. And it is pretty darned good. So it's in. Enjoy. And keep the requests coming.

A few doors down from breakfast we stop in to Castle Creek Guitars. The owner, Kent Viles, has invented a new kind of guitar: the Dobrato (patent pending, video of him playing here). It's a resonator guitar with whammy bar - that's a handle that lets you get extra vibrato.

They've been on the market less than a year and they're selling like hot cakes. They're perfect for fingerstyle blues but even classical musicians are taking to them.

They retail at $1,789 in Nashville and Austin, but if you come to Gunnison you can get one from Kent for 300 bucks less.

My father-in-law would give his right arm for one of these. Which would be foolish, if you think about it.

Population: 5,854 (2010 census). Named in honor of: John W Gunnison, a US army officer who surveyed for the transcontinental railroad in 1853.

Gunnison has Municipal home rule - it reserves the right to choose how it is governed and to minimise state intervention into its affairs.

Er, that's it. Small town America. And this on the local Gunnison Chamber of Commerce website:

We must never forget our roots. Here, the ranching heritage has endured the test of time and cowboys still drive cattle and gather hay for livestock. This century-old tradition takes you back to simpler times and inspires an unpretentious charm in all of the historic mining towns you visit.

Apologies to the great people of W Cafe, who offer high cholesterol breakfasts AND Wifi.

The three of us are sitting at a booth staring at our phones.

What happened to the art of conversation?

Our breakfast decision reflects two parallel Americas. There's The Bean, which is all gourmet coffee and superfast wifi. Next door is W Cafe, "where the locals eat" (and the Harley owners). Not an ipad in sight, just big plates of quadruple-bypass-inducing breakfasts.

The team votes for the potential heart attack.

Given that Marcel has introduced a musical note to the morning, we have our excuse to launch the playlist for the day. This one is driven by the fact that the boys are on the home stretch, gunning for Denver. Hence Denver in the titles. Except for Neil Young's Human Highway. Which is in their because it's got Highway in the title. And it's Neil Young.

Usual entreaty - send in your Denver/Colorado/road trip tunes and we'll sync 'em.

A good rule of thumb in Gunnison is don't knock over the Harley Davidsons. We're heading to the W Cafe for breakfast but we've been distracted by the guitar shop on Main Street. It opens at 9am. Might pop back after breakfast, but I feel dangerously close to an Unjustifiable Purchase.