Colorado Travel Recap: Vail, Breck, Lake Dillon, St. Mary's Glacier

Ohhhh, hey there big beautiful mountains that make me semi depressed about living in flat Ohio. At least we have lakes here? We've got that goin' for us!

Time for round 2...

After exploring Denver, we woke up early and headed to Vail. Actually, that is a fat lie. We did not wake up early...we were hungover from our night out (#oldladiescanthang) but we did make it there and we did a hike so that counts for something. On the way, we stopped and hiked St. Mary's Glacier. It's more of a beginners hike (which ended up being good for the hangover situation, ha) but was still a great workout and has stunning views!

See what I mean? 

People were hiking to the very top of that glacier and cliff jumping into the water! I'll have to add that to my list for the next visit. ;)

After the hike it was a short drive to Vail and Vail was pretty much love at first sight for me. Walking around in Vail feels like you're in a painting, as weird as that is to say. It's just so charming! We stayed at Lodge Tower, which completely exceeded my expectations. The view from our room looking over all of Vail Village was on point! 

Vail Village was literally a 30 second walk from our hotel, so our time spent in Vail was just exploring, lots of shopping, and eating yummy food! I would go back in a heartbeat for just a relaxing long weekend trip. How could you not enjoy a town that looks like this? 

And I miss it already.

When in Vail, we enjoyed lunch/beers at Red Lion (live music!), coffee in the morning from Loaded Joe's, cupcakes from Mountain Cupcakes, and a yummy dinner at Tavern. All delicious! Complete with girl talk, many laughs, and losing my favorite Ray Bans somewhere in the village...

The two stops we made on our way back to Denver were to Breckenridge and Lake Dillon. We weren't planning on stopping at Breckenridge, but we had more time than we thought so we said what the heck, let's do it! And I'm so glad we did. We were only here very briefly, but it was nice to be able to see it. We shopped and took a gondola ride!

That picture from the gondola ride actually doesn't do the beauty much justice, if you can believe it. It was even more breathtaking in person!

Lake Dillon was on our way out and is a must-stop type of place. They have a little beach area that you can lay out, have a picnic, and do a lot of fun water activities like kayaking, paddleboarding, boating, etc! The views around the lake are STUNNING...

(I had to get that cute doggy in the pic!)

(this is not the top I was originally wearing-I bought this top in breckenridge and got cold so just threw it over top my other one)

We all loved it here. Great place to spend an afternoon!

Before we made it back to Denver, we stopped at Tommy Knocker Brewery in Idaho Springs for lunch. The atmosphere was really cool (food was good too-I had pork green chili for the first time, which I guess is a really popular thing in CO?), and we even got to try some pumpkin beer as they just added it to the menu for the fall season! 

Thank you CO for beautiful weather, an excellent stay, and convincing me that sometime in my lifetime I need to live by the mountains. Oh, and thank you to my cutie cousin Natasha for hosting an amazing girls trip that we will never forget! Anddd that's a wrap!

*If you're traveling to Denver (or any of these other areas we visited), feel free to email me for rec's or tips! As always, thanks so much to those who gave me suggestions as you played a role in making my trip so good! :)