denver, co.

whenever i have more than 2 days off work, i have a hard time staying in charlotte. so with mlk weekend quickly approaching, i decided to take a little trip to denver. i emailed some family and a friend i have out there, and following andy’s snap advice, i booked a flight. 

i got to denver around 1pm on friday. my old roomie from atlanta, tiffany, who has since moved back home to denver picked me up. i hadn’t seen tiff since i moved back to charlotte in early 2011, so it has been awhile. man, i’ve missed that girl. when in atlanta, we spent a lot of time together, bonding over hating our jobs and being away from our families & friends. what this really means is that we ate out a lot and drank a lot of wine on our couch.

when you walk outside the airport, you can immediately see the rockies in the distance. tiffany thought it was so funny that i kept taking pictures of the mountains. i guess when you have a postcard-esque permanent background, you forget how beautiful it actually is.

our first stop in denver was to tiffany’s new house! she bought it earlier this month and is currently renovating it. it’s a great old victorian house originally built in 1906. i love old houses, so of course i fell in love and wondered when i’ll ever be able to afford my own house. next up, we drove all around the city. there are a ton of cool neighborhoods around denver, and i saw every last one of them on friday. we stopped for lunch in the highlands, or “lohi,” at ale house. lohi is over the river and has an amazing view of the city. i ordered a burger and soup as my side – it was beer & cheese soup – i had to.

{view from ale house}

after spending a few more hours exploring the city, we met tiff’s friend heather at denver beer company. this is the moment i fall in love with the city for two reasons: a. there are dogs allowed in this brewery/bar. there are like 15 dogs hanging out in this bar. b. i am not the only person wearing large, thick rimmed glasses. not even close. after a few brews, we headed to the infinite monkey theorem which is this new place in some random part of the city that makes their own wine. they also make canned wine, which is cool on it’s own, but even cooler because there is a monkey on it. after we enjoy eda can, we went to el diablo on colfax for a  late dinner. at this point, i have been awake for like 21 hours and i am exhausted. we left denver & headed to the burbs and i passed out faster than i can ever remember at my cousin's (well not really, but i don't feel like explaining) house where i stayed.

{view from denver brew}

{canned wine!}

i woke up saturday after an amazing sleep & tiff called to ask if she can come back and steal me for the day. of course i oblige and off we go. we explored the burbs, went to the mall, and hung out at her parent's BEAUTIFUL house for a few hours. once back at lauren & gary's, we left to go get lauren from the airport. she was in baton rouge for a week, so i actually hadn't seen her yet. we picked her up & went into downtown for dinner. they have two kids - both who i have known since they came home from the hospital. they're now 17 & 19, which makes me feel really old. we had a delicious dinner at brio with catherine & john and their significant others. i can't escape being the awkward "whatever odd number" wheel! after dinner we went back home  to parker and i again passed out faster than i can ever remember. sleep is good in colorado.

{this is the view from the mall... amazing!}

{view from tiff's parent's house}

{finally got to meet joey. he doesn't always wear those horns.}

sunday morning, lauren & i headed up to boulder to see catherine. she is a sophomore at colorado university. this is also where tiffany went to school, so i loved getting to finally see her alma mater! boulder is simply amazing. there is quite a lot of stuff there for only about 100,000 people living there. we had brunch at boulder cafe where i had the most amazing eggs benedict breakfast. we spent the afternoon walking around pearl street mall & exploring the town. lauren & i headed back into denver and spent a few hours driving around all the neighborhoods. once back in parker, we changed and went to a neighborhood cocktail party. normally this would be awkward, but i can talk to a wall. it was nice to talk to a lot of other people about denver! lauren & i watched revenge before hitting the hay. i spent all day monday traveling & also riding the skytrain in the dallas airport. that thing is sweet. it was an awesome weekend & i am thankful.

{pearl street. boulder.}

{pearl street. boulder.}

{delicious breakfast at boulder cafe}

{chi omega house at CU}

noteable denver things:

1.  the sun shines like 300+ days a year. and the sun shines REALLY bright. it's like your sunglasses aren't even on. it's amazing. it only rains 6" a year. it rained 2.38" last thursday in charlotte.

2. there's no humidity. everyday is a great hair day in colorado. there also aren't any bugs. no bugs are something i appreciate as a southerner. can you imagine a whole summer with no misquitos?

3. it's a really young & active city. there are a lot of  really awesome parks inside the city & lots of the bars have running clubs... how cool is that?

4. there are a lot of neighborhoods! charlotte has it's fair share too, but denver takes the cake. every city has it's own fancy neighborhood.  cherry creek is to denver  as southpark is to charlotte.