With a light dusting of the white stuff falling on our faces last week in Dallas, Grant booked us a flight to Denver to get the heavier stuff. With Ripley’s health (dog) still a concern I didn’t want to be away to long. The 2-hour direct flight left San Diego at 6:15am and was set to return that same night at 11:30pm. The problem—after a tumultuous night of jockeying for position in bed with Ripley (he decided to play dirty and bark as well as kick me)...I didn’t want snow, I wanted sleep.
Grant served as my wake-up call and we got ready to leave. We parked at the Sheraton Hotel right on the other side of the airport for $14.00 for 24 hours. If you are flying out of Terminal 1 it is well within a 10-minute walk distance especially if you are carrying near-empty bags as we were. Or you could be patient and take one of their shuttles that after parking there now on multiple trips we have failed to take.
Once of the plane and the announcements were over—I was out. When I woke up we were only 20 minutes away, which is magical when it happens. Upon landing, we quickly looked for the best breakfast place near the hotel. We found the Denver Biscuit Company and the location we were going to only had a 15-20 minute waitlist. Fortunately, we booked it when we did because as we arrived they were telling other patrons that the wait was 1.5-2 hour wait. I though my chicken cordon blue biscuit and Grant’s biscuit pot pie was heavy, but good. If you have ever been to Hash House A Go Go— it’s like that but smaller portions.
The restaurant was at Stanley Airport Marketplace, which had a lot of local artisan shops and food. After eating, we wandered around and then grabbed some chocolate.
The main reasons, Grant booked this flight was because he wanted to go to another spa. His “work hard, play hard” philosophy has defined play hard as spa/massage lately and partaking in those activities in California is a bit challenging with all that’s happening. While I am usually a fan of the spas he has taken me to— this one I said no too. It was in a sketchy part of town, sketchy people were going in, and the front desk was sketchy. Grant was a bit disappointed, but he agreed.
With a large chunk of our day dedicated to relaxing at the spa we had to pivot and come up with a Plan B. Denver is open, but running with a skeleton crew and limited occupancy so a lot of the normal touristy stuff was closed. After renting scooters and weaving in and out of traffic for a bit downtown, we ran out of things to do.
So Plan C or maybe even D at this point was crafted. Neither Grant or I have explored any of the neighboring cities of Denver so we choose to check out Boulder.
The city was a weird mix of college and shops, which I connected with. Eventually, we made it to Pearl Street, an outdoor mall that was lined with locals restaurants and shops. After convincing Grant to go into a few stores, my shopping experience came to an end. We hopped back in the car and were in search of something more adventurous. Since this was not our original plan, we were figuring things out as they came to us. Fortunately, our friend, Erica had lived around this area and had a few suggestions for us.
One of her suggestions was to check out the Boulder Waterfall so I said let’s do it. The drive had us climbing up the mountain side with trees and snow as the backdrop. As we made our way through the Roosevelt National Park, we noticed a few cars pulled over and quickly realized we had found our final destination.
The waterfall was right off the main road so besides it being icy was an extremely easy hike. The fall and stream were partly frozen, but that didn’t stop me from getting as close as I could to the fall. I was as responsible as I could be, while doing something irresponsible. I walked very slowly and listened intently for any cracks. Grant had no interest, but did snap a photo or two of me.
As we continued driving, the weather was getting noticeably colder and eventually the snow started to fall. This made the drive in this area even more magical. There were a few towns in this area including Black Hawk and Central City that we stopped to check out. The cities were over a 100 years, but besides the casinos that now infested them remained quite charming.
The path that we took had us attempting to revisit Indian Hot Springs, which we visited with several friends for Grant’s birthday one year. We made it, but they were sold out. So no repeat of hot tubs in the snow, but maybe next time!
We thought it would be a good idea to start heading back to Denver to catch our flight so I did a quick search and found a place called Shells and Sauce. The meal started out so well with homemade fried mozzarella and then crashed and burned. Grant sent back the Caesar salad and the entrees were...ehhh. The worst part was that we finished the meal early and Grant left with major gas. So driving around the are killing time was particularly unpleasant. Not to be left out, as soon as my stomach got wind of the food— I began to exhale it myself to Grant’s dismay.
Exhausted...we made our way to the airport. Plopped down on a chair and waited to board. We left thinking— why are people leaving California for Denver. Maybe they aren’t going to “Denver,” but the surrounding area, which would make sense. The snow seems to be the only real wow factor to me about Denver, but as we saw last weekend it’s soon to be that time of year where it is everywhere.