Colorado Travel Recap: Denver / Boulder

I'm so excited to be able to share another trip recap with you guys. I was taking pictures like a crazy person the whole time I was in Colorado-it's just too pretty not to! Colorado is definitely somewhere I can imagine myself living. It's so green, lush, and beautiful! So many great hikes, bike baths, and outdoor activities to do. It's pretty much paradise for outdoorsy loving people! 

And then there is the mountains...there is just NOTHING not to like about the mountains. That's all there is to it. It sounds silly, but even the air smells so fresh in CO...I swear it has it's own lovely scent, ha! Someone else has to feel the same, yes? Maybe?

Anyway, we stayed in downtown Denver at my cousin's for most of our trip but we also road tripped to Boulder, Idaho Springs, Vail (we stayed overnight here-wait until you see these pics! stunning!), Frisco, and Breckenridge. These cities were all semi-close to each other (Vail being the farthest from Denver, which was about 2 hours away), so it was pretty easy to hop from one to another. Plus, when you have scenic views such as this out your window at all times..you don't really mind being in the car for short periods of time!

I'm splitting this recap into two parts, otherwise you might hate me. Part 1 (ahem-now) will talk about everything we did in Denver and Boulder and then Vail, Breckenridge, our hike, etc. will be included in Part 2 (hopefully posted on Weds!) Also, I might miss a few details from this trip because we literally saw (and ate at) so many different places in the time frame we were there. I had an extremely long list of restaurants I wanted to eat at that my cousin decided to make an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of them - no joke. Crazy or not, it worked out perfectly. Planning ahead definitely pays off!

So, let's chat all about...

DENVER:

EAT
+Root Down-where we had dinner the first night! It's one of the more popular restaurants in Denver-think farm to table style with a large outdoor patio and yummy cocktails
+Avanti-cute place for drinks, has a huge outdoor patio with views of downtown
+Snooze-brunch, definitely try their pancake of the day (ours was cookies and cream-to.die.for), bloody mary's/mimosas, and I loved the breakfast tacos
+Denver Bisquit Co.-brunch/lunch, we got 2 of their bisquits to go and they were SO WORTH IT!
+Osteria Marco, great Italian place for dinner downtown-the food (and prices) are excellent! we are still talking about how much we loved the calamari and the pizza we got!
+Coopers Lounge-we just went for happy hour, it's inside Union Station and is beautiful!
+Linger, dinner/drinks-rooftop views of downtown so this is a good spot to go either before dinner or for dinner (the food looked good!)
+Pinche Tacos-dinner, delicious (killer!) margaritas and tacos

SEE
+Larimer Square-we went and "bar hopped" down here one night and it was so pretty!
+Union Station
+Red Rocks Ampitheatre, the ONLY sucky situation we ran into was that when we went-it was closed! They closed early for the day so we could only take pictures around it. It was a bummer but every other part of our trip was so amazing/went so smoothly we didn't care too much. Definitely seeing it next time I go!
+Tour one of the any breweries!
+Visit Boulder (BELOW :))

BOULDER:

Since we just spent early morning-late afternoon one day here, I don't have a ton of rec's but this was our plan...

-Shop/Eat at Pearl Street Mall
-Go for a hike at Boulder Mountain Park
-Walk around the campus
-Get a Rush bowl for a quick snack/mini lunch (think acai bowl but so many options-we loved them, they were so good and perfect if you just need something quick)

Part 2 coming soon! If you haven't been to Denver, add it to your list! I really liked being there not in the middle of winter, even though I do eventually want to go back sometime in the winter.

Who's been to Denver? What are your favorite parts?!