From Denver to Boulder

Which brings us to September, my favorite month 🙂

One of the perks of being in the military is glorious four day weekends given at certain holidays. Labor Day being one of them. As OUR luck would have it though, Husband was scheduled for yet another TDY week that had him in class through that Friday. We had hoped to use the free time to visit Yellowstone, but when plans changed we improvised. 

He flew to Denver, and I met him there. I may or may not have come thiiisss close to be stranded, out of gas, in the middle of a sea of prairie land and no cell signal, on the way. Thankfully the good Lord was watching over and I coasted into town on fumes. Super scary!

Anyway, Denver.

I didn’t take many pictures of Denver. Actually I didn’t take very many pictures that entire weekend. We LOVED Colorado. We loved the crisp, clean air. We loved the city. We love how outdoors-driven everyone seemed to be. We loved the food we ate, and especially loved the drinks (eh hmm…infused vodka what?!). I do wish now I had taken a little more care to snap a few more photos, but we will be back. Of that, there is no question 🙂

We originally planned to stay the entire weekend in Denver, but on a whim we checked out of our hotel on Sunday and headed up to Boulder. 

We are SO glad we did.

Boulder is a lot like Boone or Asheville. Lush, green mountains and a charming little downtown full of local restaurants and gorgeous shops (not to mention four breweries right downtown!). We were so happy to get out of the car and walk wherever we wanted to go for once. 

Our first stop in town was the Flat Iron Trail.

This was a tough hike for short yorkie legs.

I managed to essentially coat my camera case in the needles from this cactus.

The trail was only around 3 miles long, and I think that was for the entire loop, but a good portion of it was basically stair-steppin’ steep and climbing over big rocks. I was mildly under the weather from the previous nights vodka adventures, and the altitude wore on the dogs. Suffice it to say that we gave it a good effort, but eventually reached a point where even Jim stopped and just looked at Hubs and said, “No more.”

So we waited while he scaled his way a little farther.

This one was none too patient about his return.

She prairie-dogged constantly. Then even leaned on Jim.

Attitude much?

Then he finally returned. 

We narrowly missed a storm before reaching the car. Checked into our hotel and got the dogs settled, then went in search of cocktails and food.

We ate at the most amazing french bistro call Brasserie Ten Ten. Although Rapid City does have a few restaurants worth noting, in general we were craving something really good, really good quality, and perfectly rich. The steak frites drizzled with truffle oil, lemon ricotta gnocchi, and Cassoulet D’Ete made our taste buds sing with joy. 

We spent the night talking, connecting, and truly appreciating being in this place at this time.