Christine agreed it would be a fun trip and it was decided. Little did she know what I had in store for us.
Day 1: We flew into Denver and planned on spending two days there.
Jam sesh at the 16th Street Mall.
After walking around the 16th Street mall, listening to protesters hollering against deportation, and grabbing some lunch, we decided to go check out Red Rock Amphitheater.
It would be awesome to see a show here.
On our way back to downtown Denver we decided to check out the historic district and a couple breweries.
Day 2: Christine made the great suggestion of taking a day trip to Colorado Springs and checking out the Garden of the Gods.
Hare we spotted along a trail.
We hiked the Palmer Trail out to the Siamese Twins rock formation.
The views were great.
I wanted to check out the REI in Colorado Springs, or as I like to call it, the toy store.
That evening we walked around Denver some more. While walking through the Civic Center Park by the state capital, we watched a bunch of hipsters playing fixie lacrosse. During that time I noticed a group of meth heads that reeked of malt liquor starting to eye us. Getting a little sketched out, we got out of there and headed towards the the Denver Art Museum.
We tried to get Christine some trail running shoes that night on the 16th Street Mall after she realized just how little traction her Nike Free running shoes had on dirt. We tried Ross and TJ Maxx but couldn't find anything that really worked. Eventually we got too hungry and decided we'd find her some proper footwear in Boulder.
Day 3: After some breakfast, we took off for Boulder. I had never spent any time in Boulder before, but I had heard it had a great little college town vibe. It shouldn't have been a long drive but we hit some heavy traffic due to the Boulder Boulder Race and the Boulder Festival going on that weekend.
We still needed to find Christine some suitable footwear for hiking, so we started the hunt again. After a little bit, we stumbled on a Sports Authority and got her some good trail runners.
With the right gear, we headed out for the Flatirons.
We started up the Chautauqua trail and took it to Royal Arch.
At first I led us up the 1st/2nd Flatiron trail. Some sections of the trail had some steep drop offs and were pretty exposed. We quickly realized Christine was experiencing some vertigo so we decided to head back down and try something else. We ended up heading up the Royal Arch trail. It was a lot of climbing but the view was worth it.
Heading down was much easier.
After hiking, we got some chips, guacamole and beers at the Chautauqua Dining Hall which really hit the spot.
That night we walked from our hotel down the Boulder Creek Path to the Pearl Street Mall and got some dinner at the Boulder Dushanbe Tea House. I got panang beef which was really good.
Day 4: I had booked a hot air balloon ride through Fair Winds. We had to be at the launch site at 6:00am, nice and early. The owner of Fair Winds Hot Air Balloon Flights, Jeff, had unnatural amounts of energy for so early in the morning. With a huge smile, he told us they were on hold because of high winds but fingers crossed. Unfortunately after an hour or so, we got the final word that it was a no go. On the bright side, I now had a lot more beer money.
Now that we had a free morning, we took a drive through Boulder Canyon. I love driving twisty mountain roads. In contrast, Christine would shut her eyes and ask me to slow down. I spotted a trail head for Boulder Falls and decided to come back to it later in the day when we (Christine) had better shoes on for the short trek down to the falls.
We headed back into town and decided to check out the Boulder Festival. Christine and I shared a philly cheese-steak and beef brisket sandwich. There's nothing like festival food. We also watched an all white ragae band while we got our grub on.
After the festival, we headed over to the Boulder Brewery.
Sampler.
They have a brewery tour everyday at 2:00pm. The tour was really cool and even better was all the free beer they let us sample at the end.
After the tour, we went back to the hotel and crashed for a bit. Feeling refreshed, we headed back to Boulder Falls.
Later that evening we headed back to the Pearl Street Mall. After walking around trying to decide where to eat, we decided on some delicious Italian food. After dinner we got a couple more brews while listening to some live music at the Lazy Dog.
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