Denver

Happy Monday! I hope you all had a nice relaxing Easter weekend. Mike and I didn't have school Friday or Monday, so I'm actually still enjoying the weekend. However, if it makes you feel any better, I'll be spending the majority of today working on homework (lots of end of the semester projects). Since we had a long weekend, Mike and I knew we wanted to do something. Our first thought was to go camping. But, the weather just wasn't going to cooperate. It was forecasted to be a little chilly and thunderstorms all weekend here in Trinidad. So we packed our bags and headed to Denver Friday morning.

Our first stop was in Lone Tree, which is about thirty minutes south of Denver. There is a Cabela's store that we really wanted to stop at. Neither Mike nor I had ever to been to a Cabela's. As far as I know there aren't any in Florida, I've always just seen their catalog. I really enjoyed to store, it's very similar to Bass Pro Shop. After spending some time in Cabela's we went over to Park Meadows Mall which is also in Lone Tree. This mall is home to the only Vera Bradley store in Colorado. It was my lucky day because Vera was having a sale! I grabbed a wristlet I've had my eye on for a while at 40% off!! After that we stopped by the mall's food court and enjoyed one of my most missed foods - Chick Fil A! I savored every morsel.

After lunch we continued our drive into Denver. We couldn't check into our hotel room until four, so we went straight to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. This place was huge! It has three floors and I almost thought we weren't going to be able to see it all. There were fossils, lots of intricately painted backgrounds with taxidermied animals, and a multitude of information to read. I thought it was fantastic.

Mike with the manatees!

This is what I would look like if I had moose antlers.

After the museum we got checked into our hotel and then walked over to Duffy's Cherry Cricket for dinner. I picked this restaurant because it was featured on the Denver episode of Man vs. Food. We devoured an appetizer of deep fried macaroni and cheese wedges (sooo yummy!) and then enjoyed our burgers. Duffy's has a long list of toppings to choose from. Mike went with cream cheese and jalapenos. I was a little more boring with American cheese, blackened seasoning, and an onion. The atmosphere at the restaurant was laid back and it was nice to just relax and spend some time with Mike.

Saturday morning we checked out the Cherry Creek Mall, which was really close to our hotel and then headed into downtown Denver. We parked and then walked to the Great Divide Brewery. Along the way I stopped to take some pictures of downtown.

The tour of the brewery didn't start until 2pm, so we had some time to kill once we got there. The atmosphere at this place is amazing and the bartenders are super personable.

Parked outside of the brewery was a food truck called Burger Radio. AWESOME food!!! Mike said he thought the burgers from here were even better than the burgers we had at Duffy's the night before. I ordered the Marconi, which had bacon and mac n cheese on top of the burger!

One of the bartenders was our tour guide for the brewery tour and was very knowledgeable and informative. If we ever get the chance to go back to Great Divide, I would love to go!

Once we finished up the tour we started heading towards home. We made one last stop at the Bass Pro Shop in Colorado Springs. You can't pass a Bass Pro Shop and not stop! We had a great time in Denver!!! I'm so glad we had the opportunity to go check it out.