The Mile High City and all that's around

Along with the amazing cold foods that I get to eat in the summer, I also look forward (very eagerly) to the long weekends that come along. We try and organize fun short trips that take us to new places within the US. For the Independence Day weekend we decided to head to Denver, Colorado with two of our closest friends.

A quick dinner at the airport, a 2 hour flight and a car rental later, we landed at the Denver downtown Sheraton hotel at around 11 pm. We checked in and headed out almost immediately to the 16th Street Mall. All of us were quite ready for a mid night snack. Of the few places open, Paramount Cafe seemed to be the most popular and we indulged in some onion rings, cobbler and drinks. The food definitely did not disappoint throughout the trip and I'll highlight the best restaurants we went to!

We started off Day 1 of the trip with a brunch at a place called Sam's #3. It was so good! By the time we got there it was past 11 am and we were ravenously hungry! The 20 min wait was definitely worth it and I highly recommend the place if you land up in Denver at any point. Between the four of us we polished off a souvlaki, a chili relleno, a quesadilla and I think a Greek omelet. Also, their house hot sauces were to die for!

With our stomachs happy and our minds comatose, we walked around a little more in Denver downtown and then headed out to the Red Rock Amphitheater. Its a natural amphitheater nestled between two giant red rocks that allows for good acoustic effects. It was so impressive to see all the layers in the rocks from years and years of formation and I loved the colors.

The heat took us away from the Red Rocks to the comfort of the car and we headed towards the Coors brewery for a free tour entitles you to 4 samples of beer. Although the wait was long - almost an hour - it was worth it. I'm not a big fan of beer but I enjoyed learning more about the manufacturing process. At the end, I just sampled the non alcoholic beer that they had. It was not to my taste, but atleast it was cold and refreshing in 90 degree F weather.

Finally, we headed off to Estes Park which is a town that's about 2 miles from the southern entrance to the national park. We had booked a cottage for the night. On our way to the park, we stopped at a little restaurant that looked more like a house. It had some of the best cherry pie that I've ever had (with vanilla bean ice cream) and the cherry cider was quite amazing too! We also bought some groceries on the way to cook both dinner and breakfast at the cottage.

After spending a relaxing night at the cottage, we headed out to the Rocky Mountain National Park for a fun hike that had some amazing views. Its a beautiful park but it was interesting to see the difference in summer crowd levels between Yosemite and the Rockies. I think its more of a winter destination. (Even Denver was pretty deserted for a long weekend).

Finally, with a good hike and a scenic drive behind us, we headed back to Denver. The Independence Day weekend is also special because its my husband's birthday a day after. So we went out to dinner to Marco's Coal Fired Pizza on Larimer St. Again, highly recommended. Don't have the Mojitos though. With a canoli cake, the celebration ended on a high. And then...it started raining! Pouring!! It was an extremely wet 4th of July. It didn't matter much though since all of us were so tired by the end of the day, we just got back straight to the hotel and crept into bed.

The next day, we just walked around Old South Pearl St. Again, the lack of crowds disappointed, but the ice cream at the Pajama Bakery and some cute shopping at 5 green boxes was a pleasure!

Denver and Colorado reminds me a lot of California. It looks so similar with the valleys and mountains all around. I had no idea that the Rocky Mountain range was one that made up so many of the most beautiful national parks in the United States - Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Glacier National Park and of course, our main Colorado destination - the Rocky Mountain National Park. The mountain range extends all the way from Western Canada to New Mexico in the US!

This was such a fun holiday. A relaxing get away that all of us deserved. We could have made it a lot more hectic since there surely is a lot more to see in the RMNP and Denver but we just chose to slow it down considering our already crazy lives.