Descending Back Home

Sadly, I am writing this post from the Denver airport (no, I haven't seen any Illuminati) as Andrew and I head back home. I have to say, Denver is an amazing city. It was a great long weekend and I definitely plan to come back.

Andrew and I started our morning dining on our Voodoo donuts, and man, were they good! I had the Diablos Rex - a chocolate cake donut with chocolate chips and an icing pentagram - and it was fantastic. Andrew had the Arnold Palmer - a plain cake donut with vanilla frosting and lemonade/iced tea dust with fruit loops in the middle - which he described as "interesting". We also had an old fashioned for comparison, but I still like Doughnut Vault in Chicago best.

After our breakfast, we headed to the Jeep to take a drive into the mountains and go hiking. Sadly, our expectations for the Jeep were not met, but the hike made up for it. We went to the Bear Creek Trail - it had amazing views was an easy 2 miles for us low-altitude, city slickers. It was great to be outside and explore; definitely not something we can do every day in Chicago.

On our drive back into the city, we decided to stop and explore the Red Rocks Amphitheater. The place was extremely crowded with people working out on the steps and tourists getting pictures. There really isn't much I can say to do justice to the view, so I will just have to let you look at our pictures.

By the time we got back into Denver, it was time to grab lunch and head to the airport. We walked along the mall one last time to Union Station, and hung out in the station (it is really pretty) a bit before we jumped on a train to the airport. I slept the whole ride, so I don't have much to say about that except its a lot comfier and cleaner than the el!

Andrew and I do not have our next trip planned - yet! Leave a comment if you have any suggestions on where we should visit. Thanks for following along on our trip! - Kenzie

Biscuits, Baseball and Bizarre Donuts

Hello!

Today was another great one here in Denver. We decided to hit up one of the most popular brunch spots in the city before going to the Diamondbacks vs Rockies baseball game in the afternoon. After conducting some research, we settled on a place called Denver Biscuit Company. It would have taken us almost an hour to walk there, so like any millennial, we relied on Uber. Now, considering this is one of the most popular places in Denver, we should have anticipated a huge wait, but that didn't really cross our minds right away. When we arrived, the wait time was between 60-75 minutes, but we decided to tough it out and see if this place was really worth all the rave. Let me tell you, IT WAS! This place was incredible and we got an enormous amount of food all for $22. I had biscuits & gravy while Kenzie had a gigantic cinnamon roll. Both meals were delicious and well worth the hour long wait we endured. If you are ever in Denver, his up the Denver Biscuit Company, you won't regret it!

After brunch we walked down the street a little bit to a famous donut shop called VooDoo Donuts. This quirky place creates some extremely interesting donuts with some not so PG names. If you're dying to know what I'm talking about, just Google their menu haha. We haven't had the donuts yet because we are saving them for breakfast tomorrow along with our leftovers from brunch today. Considering we waited forever for our brunch, we were a little crunched for time because the Rockies game started at 2:10PM. We once again relied on Uber and took it back to our AirBnb so we could quickly change and head out to the game. It only took us about 15 minutes to talk over to Coors Field. Our seats were located out in left field, so we had a perfect view of the entire field. The sun also had a perfect view of us in our seats and beat down on us the entire game. There was also like a 15 minute phase of light rain followed by gusty winds, but it was pretty cool to see it all happen. The Rockies made a valiant comeback in the bottom of the 9th, but unfortunately couldn't pull it off and lost 8-5.

Even though we were exhausted and ready to go rest, we made one last trip to the Taste of Colorado. You see, I found this super cool company called 1876 by Smirk that makes awesome Colorado themed shirts, hats and hoodies. I was initially hesitant on whether or not to buy stuff, so I decided to sleep on it. Well, the sleep paid off and we made a return trip and I walked away with a shirt and a hat. The entire Taste of Colorado is really cool and spread out over a large section of Downtown Denver. There are tons of different food options as well as shopping ones too.


Today was also the 2nd straight day that we saw someone with a pet rat out in public. There was man standing outside the Taste and he had 2 rats crawling on his shoulders (see pic on the above right). I'm not sure why they like their rats here, but it sure is interesting. We both really love Denver and all that it has to offer. Tomorrow we are renting a ZipCar and taking it to some hiking trails to fully experience Colorado before we head home. Yes, we did decide to go with the Jeep instead of a tiny little Honda, because who wants to go through the mountains in a small Honda? If you have a Honda, that is perfectly okay, but we went with the Jeep. All in all, the trip has been a huge success and we have loved this city.

Until tomorrow.....

Thanks!

Andrew

Labor Day Getaway

A few months ago, Andrew happened upon $36 flights to Denver, so here we are! Andrew and I are spending the long weekend in the Mile High City! 

Our weekend started at 4 a.m. this morning, when we arrived to the airport for our 5 a.m. flight. Even though we were pretty tired, we managed to pack a full day of activities in. From the airport we took the new RTD train into the city. First stop was exploring Union Station and the 16th street mall. The mall reminded us a lot of Madrid - a wide street made only for pedestrians (besides a free bus that goes up and down) with shops along both sides. We had some breakfast at a creperie and spent the rest of the morning checking out some of the shops. 

For the afternoon, we decided to check out the CELL museum - the Counterterrorism Education Learning Lab. On our way, we stumbled into Taste of Colorado. We checked out the festival, and then moved onto the museum. When we arrived at the Civic Center (Denver's museum campus), it turned out to be a "Free Saturday" and we didn't have to pay admission for the CELL. We learned a lot about terrorism and got to practice how to identify and prevent it as a civilian. 

After the CELL, we went to the Colorado History Museum. This was my favorite part of the day - the museum was very interactive and had a lot of great exhibits. We got to milk a cow, experience the Dust Storm, practice our ski jumps, and measure how many gallons of water we use in a day (which is a LOT more than the Navajo). There was also an 'Awkward Family Photo' exhibit, where Andrew and I were able to take our own awkward photos!

After the museum, we headed back to the apartment to rest our feet for a bit. We decided on an Italian place along the mall for dinner. Our meals were amazing and ginormous! After dinner we walked along the mall some more. We found out some sort of Comic-Con type convention is going on this weekend, and there are a ton of people dressed up in super weird costumes. We even saw one girl walking with a live rat sitting on her shoulder. 

Our first impression of Denver is that it is a great city! It is very clean, the people are friendly, and there seems to be a lot of fun things to do! Tomorrow we are going to check out some more museums and go to a Rockies Game! Its a short trip, so we are hoping to pack as much as possible into these three days! Check in tomorrow to hear what other adventures we find. 

Thanks!

Kenzie