Red Rocks

Friday after lunch we started making our way to Summit County, with a stop at Red Rocks.  Red Rocks is about 20-30 minutes outside of Denver and is both a park and an amphitheater.  It would be amazing to see a show there sometime, but for this visit we were just going to check out the park.

Driving up to the visitors center, we got a pretty good taste of what we were in for.  It was absolutely gorgeous.  The red rock formations looked like they sprouted up out of nowhere.  We got to the visitors center and went inside to find out about the trails.  We found one that was a 1.4 mile loop around many of the rock formations and decided to check it out.  It was a beautiful hike, and aside from being really hot outside, it was a fairly easy. 

If you're in the Denver area, I highly recommend a trip to Red Rocks!

Here is some of what we saw:



View from the Visitors Center



Big Red Rocks

Panoramic View from along the hike

Laura exploring the rocks

Keep Off those rocks!

We survived the heat!

Denver, Colorado

This past weekend I took my very first trip to Colorado!  I went to visit my sister who moved to Breckenridge after graduation (so a few months ago).  I flew into Denver on Southwest on Thursday and our journey started there.

Laura is still getting to know her way around Colorado, but she took me to one of the areas in Denver that she is most familiar with...the 16th Street Mall.  This is a long stretch of shops and restaurants in downtown Denver.  The street is closed to cars, but they do have free buses that run up and down the mall.



16th Street Mall



Random Pianos everywhere



We met Laura's friend Elle for a beer at Colorado's first brewpub, Wynkoop.  The beer was just ok (I ordered the Wixa Weiss), but we enjoyed sitting out on the patio.



Laura & Elle at Wynkoop





Wynkoop Beer Menu



I had gotten multiple recommendations to visit a Mexican restaurant called Casa Bonita, so I decided we had to give it a try.  Let me tell you, Casa Bonita is a unique experience.  You definitely don't go there for the food! 

The inside is decorated like a scene from Disneyland.  There is a 2-3 story waterfall, a cave, cliff jumpers, pirate shows, a traveling Mariachi band etc.  The restaurant seats over 900 people.

When you arrive, you place your order with a cashier, then proceed to get a tray and some silverware.  At a small counter, you pick up your food, which comes out entirely too quickly.  Then you head over to the host stand where, they bring you to your seat.  We got pretty good seats with a nice view of the waterfall.

We both ordered the all-you-can-eat delux chicken dinner for $13.79.  Not bad for all the food you get!  We only felt slightly sick after eating the food! haha.

We headed back to downtown after dinner, so Laura could show me the bar scene.  We only got to visit two bars before a little altitude sickness made me want to call it quits.  First we went to The Front Porch.  It was really chill and decorated really interestingly!  I guess there are usually a lot of hot guys there too.  Next we went to a vodka bar that was around the corner.  Laura had tried the pickle infused vodka last time she was there and got a pickle as a chaser.  This time she tried the honey infused vodka and didn't like it as much.

We spent the night at Laura's friends Elle and Joel's, who live in Denver. The next day we went back to the 16th Street Mall for lunch. We decided on H Burger Co. Laura had been before and raved about the burger. The highlight of this place was the dipping sauce for the fries...tasted like pita sauce in Belgium (that will only make sense to a few people, but I don't know how else to describe how good it was).

So basically Denver was mostly eating and drinking.

Then we were off to Red Rocks...