Similar to our last post, it has been a long time since we blogged, but after discussing blogging with my co-worker today (who also happens to have a blog), we decided to recommit to writing about our adventures. We have been crazy busy adventuring all around the Pacific Northwest and most weekends we drive 6+ hours to go explore. We are having the time of our lives, but it definitely leaves little time to maintain this bad boy.
To kick off our reignited love of blogging, we wanted to share a little bit about our Colorado trip. We spent a long weekend in Colorado a little over a week ago and had a blast! It was our first bigger vacation since Kauai last year, which is crazy because it feels like we are always going somewhere.
We went to Colorado for a couple reasons. 1) A good friend was getting married and 2) to hike and visit another National Park. For those of you who don’t know, our biggest life goal and bucket list item is to visit all 59 National Parks together. We collect patches at each one and have a cool National Parks map to keep track of all of them. This trip checked off our 6th NP from the list, so we are slowly getting there. 🙂
Since we knew we would be driving all around Colorado, we stayed in Denver, as it was the most central. We rented the cutest little airbnb carriage house in a backyard, which had the most adorable decor and awesome hosts. If you’re ever in Denver, check out the Brass Rabbit!
After we landed in Denver, we headed to Boulder for much needed coffee (5 AM flights are rough!), food, and hiking. We grabbed some coffee in the Pearl Street Mall at Boxcar Coffee Roasters (super cute & awesome coffee!), a quick lunch at Illegal Pete’s, and headed to Chautauqua Park to hike the Royal Arch trail.
By this point, I was suffering a little bit of altitude sickness, so the already tough hike was even tougher, but totally worth it. From the top, you not only were rewarded with a really cool rock arch, but you could also see for miles, including all of Boulder and the UC Boulder campus.
After our hike, we headed back to Denver to indulge in our favorite taco shop from Austin, Torchy’s Tacos. Denver has a few Torchy’s now and we were pumped to be reunited with some tacos and our favorite queso of all time. After we indulged in some sweet, sweet queso, we headed to Little Man Ice Cream for some dessert. Ice cream is our go-to dessert and we are always trying new spots together when we travel. Little Man has been on our list for years and it was just as delicious as we imagined. We didn’t feel like waiting in the extremely long line, so we went to their express lane, which still had the flavors we were eyeing. Unfortunately, I have recently been diagnosed with some food sensitivities, one of which being eggs (which are usually in ice cream), so this trip was my last ice cream hoorah. 🙁 I soaked up every second of it though!
Our second day in Colorado was spent hiking ~10 miles through Rocky Mountain National Park. We woke up early to head to Estes Park, grabbed some breakfast, and headed to RMNP. We used Bear Lake as our launch pad for the day and hiked from Bear Lake to Nymph Lake, Dream Lake, and Emerald Lake. The sights were incredible! We weren’t the only ones who thought so, as the parking lots and trails were very crowded, even by 8:30 AM. Thankfully the park has a free shuttle to get you around.
After we hiked to Emerald Lake, we headed to Alberta Falls and Mills Lake. This was just as great, maybe even better, than the first half of our day. There were less crowds and Mills lake was stunning!
After our day trip to Rocky Mountain National Park, we headed back to Denver for some dinner and dessert. For dinner, we ate at this awesome spot called Chop Shop Casual Urban Eatery. It was a fast casual type restaurant, but with upscale food. We got the short rib and the filet and it was probably my favorite meal of the trip (minus Torchy’s)! After dinner, we went across the street to Nuggs for ice cream. So good!
Our third, and last full day in Colorado, took us to Colorado Springs for some sightseeing before a wedding that evening. We spent a few hours strolling around Garden of the Gods Park, which was such a cool change of scenery from the rest of the trip. The jagged orange/red rocks were so unique. The best part of this park is that it is free and easy for all ages/activity levels to explore.
After Garden of the Gods, we grabbed lunch at the Skirted Heifer, a burger joint featured on Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives that specializes in burgers with a cheese skirt. We love checking out Triple D restaurants when we travel and as Guy would say, this spot was “out of bounds.”
After a night full of dancing like fools, we slept in a tiny bit for our last day in Denver before venturing out for some coffee at Thump and breakfast at Snooze. We have been to Snooze in Austin and love it, but since it started in Denver we knew we had to check it out in its home state. We went to the Snooze at Union Station and then walked over to Coors Field for Adam’s obligatory stadium photo. We are trying to get a photo of him in front of every stadium and one day will make a cool collage of all of them.
We then walked all around Denver’s 16th Street Mall (mostly in search of a good souvenir shirt haha) and the super cute Larimer Square. Our last stop before heading to the airport was Denver’s food hall, Avanti Food and Beverage, for some arepas and nice views of downtown.
Our trip to Colorado was a crazy fun few days and we cannot wait to go back! Next up: San Francisco + Yosemite next week!
To follow our adventures in real time, check out our instagram.
Love reading your blog…so much good info to so many cool places!!!
thank you! I’m going to CO in may and this is so helpful!!
Hi Alejandra! We are so glad! Have a great trip 😃