My 7th trip to Colorado was a long weekend with my oldest nephew. The goal was to help him with the apartment search and learn some details on his future job, so mission accomplished!
This = T and I on a hike at the Chautauqua Park this morning! (It's out of order, but I wanted it to be the cover pic for this post.)
Friday was the 10-hour drive from 9am Central to 6ish Mountain Time. We had a nice chat for the first 4+ hours, then T took a nap while I listened to The Curiosity Shop podcast, a new favorite for me. We checked in at the DoubleTree in Cherry Creek then headed over to the 16th Street Mall for a fun Mexican dinner on the patio at 3 Margaritas, followed by a 30-minute walk around that area then seeing the Masters of the Universe movie at 9:15!
Pic from our walk =)
Saturday started off with breakfast and coffee for T at the Steam Espresso Bar, a cool coffee shop at a restored firehouse in the Lower Highlands (LoHi) area of Denver.
Then we toured seven apartments with a brief stop for lunch at In-N-Out somewhere in there. We did a self-guided tour at the Cirrus (meh). It was a quick no on the guided tour of the High Line Pointe apartments. We were able to sneak the Elevon Apartments in between two scheduled tours, and they were the top contender at that point (they were in the Union Station area)!
After lunch, we toured the 4040 Fox Apartments with Giovanni, a newer complex that had some nice amenities!
We rushed through the (undesirable) older Waterford apartment complex in Cherry Creek. And finally, we saw the Amli Golden Triangle apartments, a brand new complex that was super nice, as was our tour guide! It was T's number one contender and the closest to the downtown Denver area!
Furnished model unit
Balcony view of downtown Denver (better seen in person, of course)
And after all of that, we met Holly Dei for a tour of her apartment (rooftop pic here)
We took an Uber to dinner at Satchel's on 6th, then took a leisurely walk back to her apartment, stopping for ice cream and to chat with an engineer friend of hers on the way back.
It was a pleasant outdoor walk that included a difficult-but-important conversation.
Based on that, our plans for day two shifted a bit. We drove to Boulder, CO (a first for both of us), where we took a short hike with a major incline (which felt worse with the altitude adjustment) at Chautauqua Park! But yay for these pics - made me think of the 2014 convo with JEM - the pics do make *light* hiking worth it!
The lady walking in front of us pointed to several buildings with red rooftops and told her friends that was the CU Boulder campus. Whaaat? We hadn't realized we were four minutes away, but we stopped by their bookstore and grabbed some merch for Triston's future college campus!
Then we took a stroll through the Pearl Street Mall and grabbed lunch at the Organic Sandwich Company. We had a really good talk where T made some wise observations about how a lot of life comes down to being able to pivot and find a new path forward when life doesn't go according to plan.
After lunch, we listened to Michael Jackson whilst Tman bravely drove us through the freaking windy mountains to the Brainard Lake Recreation Area, another spot recommended by ChatGPT on a last-minute search Saturday night... (I also bought myself this new hat at the CU Boulder Bookstore.)
Scary drive; scenic mountain views!
In the end, the road to Brainard Lake was closed -- they close it for winter but usually reopen it mid-May -- you could take a four-mile walk to go see it, but we had a tour scheduled and didn't have the extra time for that. So we drove 45 minutes out of our way and then walked over a mile through a field swarming with gnats to see this far smaller and less exciting Red Rock Lake, which honestly felt like a fitting metaphor on this trip.
HOWEVER, we met a fantastic older couple who have lived in Boulder 40 years. They were out hiking, and we walked back to our car with them. Triston talked to the man, a retired doctor and Army veteran who had good advice for him about living in the Boulder area... and I walked and talked with his wife, who told me about growing up in Seattle, some good things to see in Alaska, and their coming trip to New Zealand to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary. They were a gem, and the genuine connection was a treat!
Phillip and Tman (walking back up to the Road Closed sign that blocked us from getting to see the bigger lake)!
We did one final apartment tour at The Russell, then we stopped for Sam-n-Ella's style pizza at BeauJo's on our way back!
I dropped Tman off at Holly's apartment (four minutes from our hotel). He is staying there the next four nights while she is on a Vegas vacation, then flying home Thursday night - I hope he has a great time getting to explore a bit more of Colorado. Then I ended the night with some familiar friends (the Barden Bellas and the Oceans 13 crew) whilst snacking on a DoubleTree cookie and writing these blogs - and now I have an audiobook-filled drive ahead of me tomorrow - fun times!! ❤
Hope you've had a great weekend, friends! And here's a friendly reminder that a lot of life is about the ability to pivot well and find a new path forward when things do not go according to plan!
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