Denver is beautiful!

We ended up staying in Boulder for work, but drove to Golden and Black hawk one day. The drive up is amazing, I can't wait to go back in January for another week!!! We didn't get to go up to Estes Park because work plans changed, but hopefully in January when we go again. Any really cool spots to check out? Especially wherever elk crossing is.
 
Is Black Hawk the little casino town place? I think we stopped in there for coffee taking the scenic route up to Estes and the Rockies.

We drove through Blackhawk and another little town nearby it .. one was the casino town the other looked like a little town that could've been out of the wild west.. real old buildings that probably had a saloon right in the middle of them.

I want to go back in spring to maybe try out skiing and see the snow cover but don't know if I"ll be able to. Estes is great the shopping is awesome the food is good- there's a place that makes taffy that is the best saltwater taffy you'll ever have (i know right? strange!)

There's a crazy shop on the way from RMNP that's like Noah's Ark and its a buildign thats a HUGE boat that sells every species of stuffed animal you could ever think of (except for webkinz, they seemed offended that we even asked).. was trying to find a gift for my niece :)

A lot of the park was closed for the elk migration and the snow but when you go in we kept to the right and there were elk honestly like.. all over the first 300 feet into the park. It cost like $20 for us to take our car in and I guess its normally not so bad if you live there or go camping or what not but we were like uh we just wanna drive through for a little while!

There's a snow play area that was cool but didn't have a lot of snow and it looked like it would have been really wet and dirty which would have been fun but we had plans after there so we skipped it.

The Stanely hotel was really nice - but the original rooms in the hotel are 100 years old or something and could use some work.. the little manor and the estate houses they had were much better.

The Denver aquarium was awesome and im guessing you and becca might enjoy touring the coors brewery- lots of little brewerys all over. I really wanted to go to Ted's steakhouse but we missed it.

There was a place downtown called Domo that is a country style japanese garden you can eat in that has the most amazing food. You'd never think it was there but the owner teaches aikido i think and has his dojo alongside the restaurant. Very very cool place.

They have fast food called Tokyo joe's thats awesome- imagine Chipotle but japanese food. They NEED to open one here in florida omg
 
beautiful pics Christtie
we will be there in less than a month, probably get snowed in for Christmas, layover from Kirtland AFB to Orlando is in Denver.
 
Cool George yeah Denver is quite a hub.. we flew on Frontier and they were awesome compared to other planes I've been on.

hope you have a safe trip out there :)
 
Unfortunately becca can't go with, it's just for work. But hoping to catch an additional sight or two we didn't make last trip.
 
I spent fourteen summers in RMNP as a kid....my father was a seasonal naturalist there. I climbed all the mountains and backpacked all summer long (and the fishing was great!!). What a way to grow up!!:D

Joe
 
That's cool Joe I'm almost jealous! Then again my childhood was 18 years of living on a barrier island in SW Florida and I don't think I could trade it for the world.

I was really taken a back by this one house in the park. I was super surprised someone still actually lived there but apparently the deal was when the woman dies she'll leave the home and property to the park but the house just happened to be older than the park zoning at the time.

I'm still baffled that before this high tech age people were able to land on in the east and trek through freezing snow and ice and mountains where we were to get out to the western coast. Absolutely amazing. Now I really wanna go back when its snowing and wintery just to see what its like!
 
Yes, it was a great way to grow up....I could have just as well spent my summers on an island in Florida as well!! My father was a school teacher, so that's how we all could go out west every summer.
I hope you went all the way to the west side of the park (Grand Lake), instead of turning around once you got to the Alpine Visitor Center on Trail Ridge Road. The West Side is where we were "stationed". It gets alot more rain than the East Side (the rain can't get to the East Side, over the mountains), but is far less travelled (which makes it nicer, in my opinion).
I can't recall the big house you mention, but yes, the people in those properties have the option of living in them until they die. On the West Side, an old, eighty year's young rancher named Johnny Holzwarth owned a huge ranch that had been passed down through his family's generations. He was still operating his dude ranch while we were there, and I had some great conversations with him. Man, could he tell some old pioneer stories about the history of the area! Anyway, the last couple years we were there, he sold the ranch to the Park, and now they run the place as a "visitor experience". They tore down the huge inn and guest cabins, but Johnny's old homestead house and land were left as they were. You can take tours through the old place now, and when I was there, you actually sampled the old sourdough bread recipe from Johnny's family.
(oh, the memories),

Joe
 
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