A month ago I took my first every road trip to Denver, Colorado. It was probably the most spontaneous thing I have ever done considering we booked our trip a week ahead of time. I have been to Florida, the Carolina's, Virginia and majority of the states of the Eastern half of America other than the states up north like New York and Maine (& many more). But I had never been West of Indiana before this, and man was I missing out. I have seen the Appalachian Mountains many times, but they are no comparison to the Rockies.
I was star-struck by the mountains, with probably 200+ pictures from inside the car. Once we got to Colorado, Denver was our home base but over the course of the 4 days we visited Breckenridge, Morrison (Red Rocks Amphitheater) and the Rocky Mountain National Park.
I had a Pinterest board full of hikes, shopping and things that were a "must do" in Denver. We packed as much as we could into these 4 unforgettable days.
On the top of almost every list I "pinned" was the Red Rocks Amphitheater only a little bit outside Denver, in Morrison. Everything I read beforehand said that even if there were no concerts going on at the time, it was still a place to visit. With all the concerts that week sold out, we went the second day early in the afternoon. There were people with their dogs going on hikes, people doing yoga, and people like me, taking pictures. First of all, those RED ROCKS were incredible! They were everywhere, some so tall I couldn't even get a picture of the whole rock. And, it is not just a concert venue, but there are miles and miles of hiking around the area.
And this is my room mate for my last year at IU. The main reason for our trip out here was to visit her sister who just recently moved out there.
The third day, we went to the ski-town of Breckenridge. It was a beautiful, ear popping, two hour drive from Denver. We spent the morning walking around the shops downtown determined to find the perfect Colorado sweatshirt (lots of tourist-y shops there). I even ended up with a super-cute cultured Colorado coffee mug (when I say cultured, I mean weed leafs all over). I figured that was the classiest thing I could buy, because I had to buy something with that on it, how could I not being in this state.
Then we went to Summit Reservoir where I completely fell in love with this state. The mixture of mountains and water was breathtaking. I am even surprised that the pictures on my phone were mine, they were so pretty.
For our last day we made it to the Rocky Mountain National Park. It was the middle of the day and most of the hot spots were full with signs flashing that said "come back around 4pm" but nobodies got time for that. So, we pulled into the nearest parking area of course with a mountain view. We just walked up the side of the mountain until we found the perfect trees to hang my hammock from. In retrospect, I wish we would have done a little more actual hiking but I wouldn't take back a single thing that we got to do.
And I think I should mention how two poor college kids made a cross country trip affordable. Since my room mate and I both work for hotels, we got every night for under $50. And if you know anything about how expensive hotel rooms are, $50 is pretty amazing for upper class hotels. We split gas, filling up the tank every other time. And we ate out everyday and still kept our food budget within $40 a day (for the whole day). Luckily, we didn't have to pay for things like a Rocky Mountain pass because her sister already had one. We also got into the Denver Botanical Gardens for free because of her sister. So that was pretty nice. I was happy to cut the cost of this trip down anywhere I could. Because even though we saved money wherever we could, it still wasn't cheap. But the memories are worth it to me and I can't wait to go back one day. And maybe even live there, you never know, the world is my oyster.
