Tag Archives: colorado

Colorado – Day 5

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Day 5 was a short one for us. We woke up really early to drive back to Denver, so early in fact that we got to watch the sunrise.

I ate french toast in the car as I drove because we didn’t get our car loaded and checked out fast enough to eat a proper breakfast with tables and utensils.

We arrived at the Denver Children’s Hospital to visit Hannah’s doctors from when she was a kid. When she was 2 years old she had a liver transplant and this year is her 20 year anniversary of said magnificent event.

It was so cool to get to see her doctors, they even included her in a medical study! So awesome!

This was the poster outsider of one of their offices, it was so cool! Naturally the graphic designers in us loved it and I just had to take a picture.

After visiting with her doctors we grabbed some lunch, killed some time at a nearby Target and then headed to the airport to return our rental car and wait for our flight home. It was a fantastic trip and I would go back to Colorado in a heart beat. It was absolutely beautiful and there was so much to do!

Happy Traveling,
Jennifer

To view more pictures from our trip - go here. To read about our other adventures visit - Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4.

Colorado – Day 4

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Day 4, my favorite day of the whole entire trip. Why you ask? Because we went to the Olympic Training Center, of course!

We arrived with enough time to go to the gift shop, where I loaded up on USA goods, including a Team USA Wrestling shirt! Woot Woot! We even got the chance to sit in a bobsled and compare our wing spans to Michael Phelps’ in the Visitor Center before heading out on our tour.

Along the tour path they have a flag for all the countries involved in the Olympics and displays for all of the Olympic Sports. Naturally we had to take pictures next to our favorite sports, Hockey for Hannah, Wrestling for Me.

We got to go in most of the buildings including the training center, the gyms, shooting range, weightlifting areas and then…the greatest moment of my life. We entered the wrestling room, and I could have died I was so happy! It’s a good thing the mens team wasn’t training or I may have just totally lost it. It was cool to watch the girls team train though. I wish I could have stayed there for hours, alas the tour continued on. The last place we went by was the pool, it was pretty cool to see. There was a women’s team training there as well.

In the Visitor Center they have the three different torches displayed from the US Olympic Games. It was very cool to see. A friend of mine from High School actually got to run with the Salt Lake City torch.

After our tour finished we darted over the the Pikes Peak Cog Railway for which we had Noon tickets for. It took about an hour to ride the train all the way up to the summit, where it was 20 degrees. Once at the top we took tons of pictures, it was BEAUTIFUL. I could hardly believe just how far you could see. We grabbed some lunch at the “restaurant” at the summit and proceeded to shop the gift store, again, of course.

Afterwards we headed back into Manitou to visit the shops that closed before we got to them the day before and eat some fantastic mexican food at, The Loop. Hannah had some good ol’ tacos and I had an authentic Mexican Burrito stuffed with veggies; both were absolutely fantastic.

After dinner and shopping we headed back to our hotel where we had a lot of packing a head of us. Our hotel room was a nightmare while we were attempting to pack everything we bought. We both bought way more than we intended to so it was quite interesting but we managed to make it work!

Happy Traveling,
Jennifer

To view more pictures from our trip - go here. To read about our other adventures visit - Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.

Colorado – Day 3

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On day three of our trip we ventured onto the Air Force Academy and went EVERYWHERE. That’s not even an understatement either, we literally went to every part of the base. Hannah’s dad was an Air Force pilot so she has a military ID which allowed us to get into anywhere we wanted to without being searched. It was kind of spooky, especially when we pulled up on a check point and a man with an automatic weapon stopped us. Not something I’ve ever experienced before, it was crazy. First we stopped at the gift shop (naturally) and then walked over to the chapel. We explored the Chapel and surrounding area, unfortunately the AFA was on Spring Break so we didn’t get to see anything cool.

The stained glass makes the interior of the chapel so magical and beautiful; and check out that organ – AMAZING!

After visiting the chapel we hoped back in the car and drove to the next location on the tour map. It was an awesome over look of the school, pardon my crazy hair, it was SO windy out! So windy in fact that we had trouble walking without getting blow around.

After the lookout we stopped by the football field. Hannah was timid to approach, unsure of whether or not we were allowed. I ventured confidently, deciding that if we do get in trouble we can just flash her id, tell them how her dad and my uncle both attended the academy, fake cry a little, and if none of that worked and we got arrested – hey! At least I would know what it would be like to get arrested on a military base, right? (My mom would not appreciate this…) Alas we did NOT get arrested and were even met by a father with his two daughters down on the field. He gladly took our picture and then Hannah attempted to do a cartwheel on the field.

Next we stopped by the sports center and were able to find Hannah’s, Dad’s hockey team picture, so cool. We wandered around there and then it was time to head out, we HAD been at the AFA for 4+ hours at this point.

By the time we finally left the Academy we were starving, as we had missed lunch in our excursion around the base. We wandered into downtown Manitou, a fabulous small town area, and ended up at PJs Bistro. Let me tell you the food was AMAZING. My favorite meal of the whole trip, hands down. It ended up being a polish restaurant and our waiter was excellent in recommending dishes for us. Hannah had the Hungarian goulash with potato pancakes and I had the Perogies. SO GOOD. I wish I could go back, just for this meal.

After eating we went shopping in the area and the headed back to our hotel, totally worn out again from our adventures.

Happy Traveling,
Jennifer

To view more pictures from our trip – go here. To read about our other adventures visit – Day 1 and Day 2.

Colorado – Day 2

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Since we hadn’t planned any of our days before arriving in Colorado it left us with the freedom to decide on a whim. We had pulled a bunch of flyers for things from the airport and our hotel. We decided to go to the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine in the morning. We got super lost on our way there, no thanks to our Garmin and iPhones, but once we got there it was so worth it! We got to go 1,000 feet underground in one of those tiny miner cages. When I say tiny, I mean tiny, and there were six of us in there. Needless to say we got VERY close to our friends from Ohio. Our tour guide was so good and at the end of the tour each of us got a piece of rock with gold in it. I would definitely recommend it to anyone going out there. Hannah and I both picked up some awesome jewelry from their giftshop as well.

They had the greatest hand painted typography around the grounds, below are my favorites.

On our way to the Gold Mine we passed this Swiss restaurant which had Hannah fit to be tied as she LOVES Swiss food. So of course on our way back we stopped there for lunch. I couldn’t help but laugh when they presented a whiteboard in front of us for their menu, haha. Hannah had the schnitzel and I had the salmon club sandwich, both meals were absolutely fantastic.

After lunch we decided to stop by the Cave of the Winds. We were hoping to get to go on the lantern tour, but it was sold out. The tour we went on was still very cool, had had the most fantastic views from the parking lot.

After Cave of the Winds we stopped by Garden of the Gods. This was one of the best parts of the trip for me, it was absolutely BEAUTIFUL and we had so much fun climbing up the rocks.

There were so many fantastic photo opportunities, we just couldn’t stop taking them! This was a moment that we both wished we had a tripod with us, so we could have taken more pictures with the two of us. Instead we played a lot of “your turn, my turn, oh quick wait take one for me to instagram!”. We had an absolutely blast!

We found this little nook that decided to climb up into to take pictures, we quickly learned that it was much easier to climb up, than down. We had a good laugh about our efforts to climb down without falling.

Then we got a little braver and took pictures laying down on the side of the rocks, where on wrong turn and we would have tumbled all the way back down. It was so much fun, we never wanted to leave. In fact we stayed so long that by the time we got back to our hotel all the restaurants had closed (it was Sunday) and we had to resort to ordering Papa Johns, it was so worth it though.

This is my absolute favorite picture of Hannah from the entire trip, it captures her personality perfectly.

Happy Traveling,
Jennifer

To read about Day 1 – go here. To view more pictures of our trip – go here.

Colorado – Day 1

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As you know if you’ve read my previous posts, I recently took a trip to Colorado with my roommate and one of my best friends Hannah. We had an excellent time and I can’t wait to share all of our adventures with you guys! We left the Twin Cities at 6:30am and arrived in Denver by 8am. We picked up our luggage and our rental car and were off to Downtown Denver! One of my colleagues had told me that we just had to go to Tattered Cover, and that we did! It was absolutely fantastic! We enjoyed a small breakfast in their cafe section, where I had one of the best cups of tea I’ve ever had. We then proceeded to wander around and view all of the new, used, ‘vintage’ and autographed books they had on hand. It was absolutely fantastic.

After we left Tattered Cover we started our stroll through the rest of Downtown Denver. I was fascinated with all of the paintings on the sides of buildings, and even one wonderful bench.

We wandered through the shops, enjoyed some Jamba Juice, and bought some absolutely marvelous cupcakes from Gigi’s Cupcakes truck. Then we found a map and noticed we weren’t too far from the US Mint so we thought we would go and check it out; unfortunately when we got there they were closed. :(

So we proceeded to wander around the capital, it was so beautiful out!

After checking out the capital we ventured back through some more shops and headed to our car. We proceeded to drive to Monument, where we were staying our first two nights at the Sundance Mountain Lodge. I wished I had taken some pictures of our hotel, it was lovely. After checking in and getting settled we ventured out for some dinner. At the recommendation of the Walgreens cashier, where we had stopped to get bottled water, we wound up at Spicy Basil. It was FANTASTIC, and our waiter was absolutely hilarious! We started with dumplings and Vietnamese egg rolls. Hannah had Pineapple Chicken and I had the Chicken Lettuce Wraps.

After dinner we went driving around Monument to see what we could find. We ended up finding some pretty awesome shops, I was in small business heaven! It was a pretty good first day, if you ask me. After doing some shopping we headed back to our hotel and absolutely crashed from waking up at 4am.

Happy Traveling,
Jennifer

To view more photos of our trip – go here.

Colorado, I love you.

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If you follow me on twitter you probably realized that I was on vacation this week in Colorado. My roommate Hannah and I went there for a few reasons, one being that both of us are March birthdays and we decided to make it our present to ourselves. We had a great time and I am officially in love with the state of Colorado (and their 75mph speed limits). I will be posting more in depth about our trip in the days/weeks to come but for now I will leave you with these teaser photos.

What is your favorite place to visit?
Jennifer

My first vacation…

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Okay, my “first” vacation might be a stretch. I have been on vacation before, but this is the first time that I will be going on a vacation I paid for completely on my own. Boy does that feel good!

My roommate and I are headed to Colorado in a few weeks and I could not be more excited! We’re going to spend a few days in a quaint little town and then venture to Colorado Springs to visit the Air Force Academy and the Olympic Training Center (maybe I’ll spy a few wrestling, woot woot! ;). We’ll also spend some time in Denver since that’s where we’re flying into and out of. I will be sure to take lots and lots of pictures and post them when we get back. If you have an reccomendations for us on places we should go, restaurants we should eat at etc., please leave them in the comments! We’d love to hear them!