Travel Guide: Denver + Boulder, CO, USA

Off to Colorado for a few days!  Here was my itinerary:

• IKEA!  My first time.  Wandered around for an hour and a half looking at rugs and trinkets for the home.  But, small carry on luggage and a recent desire to not clutter up my life with stuff, I left empty handed!  Did eat a pretty tasty $1 cinnamon roll there though.  And 3 samples.
• Wandered around DSW and the Park Meadows Mall as part of my random shopping afternoon.  Again, no purchases (after all, Christmas was right around the corner!) but it was some nice alone time.

When my friends made it into town we became a little more outdoorsy:

Panoramic view of the prairie dog holes in Arsenal!

• First up, a trip to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Reserve!  We were in the mood to hike, and while we didn't really do sufficient research to know that this was definitely NOT the mountains, it was a still a great trip.  We started off at the visitors center to learn a little more about the history of this Superfund site and then tried to find some wildlife first in the car and then by foot.  Andddd we had success!  Bison, white tailed deer, mule deer, tons of coyotes, prairie dogs and hawks!

Bison!  Through the binoculars.  (Available for free at the Visitors Center!)

• Next up was a trip to the acclaimed Bang! restaurant.  Okay, admittedly I am a bit prejudice, my amazing aunt does own the place, but regardless of familial connections, this food is amazing.  I went twice this trip and sampled the Cobb salad, goat cheese and potato croquette and toasted apple spice cake.  Amazing.  Second time was a BLT subbing avocado for bacon, fries and we all shared the coconut cream pie and gingerbread.  My friends all loved it as well.  GO NOW.
• Then we visited the Perfect Petal, a cute shop up the street that I had a gift certificate too.  Fun place to look around!
• After picking out some charming art to add to my room we went to the Downtown Aquarium and stared at some fish.  It was pretty entertaining I will say.  Lots of fishies, octupi and I even touched a manta ray!  They even have tigers?  That was confusing, and it seemed like a really small space for 5 tigers, but they are beautiful.

Acting like a fish in the aquarium

• The next day we headed out to Boulder to hike Mt. Sanitas.  We were out of Kansas, so might as well see some mountains, eh?  For you actual Coloradians, this might but a normal little mid-morning walk, and we certainly saw many people who were just out for a little run up the mountain, but for us it was a multi-hour adventure.  Partly because we got lost.  Fun nevertheless!  Good trail (probably more easily followed without snow on the ground) and some great views from the peak.

• After our bit of exercise we went to the Redstone Meadery for their 3pm tour!  We didn't know much about mead (looked it up on Wikipedia beforehand) but we learned (and sampled) a LOT during the tour.  I highly recommend the Nectar of the Hops and the Sunshine Nectar.

Twas a quick but good trip!  Can't wait to go back and climb a few more mountains.  Who knows, maybe I'll do a real mountain sometime.