Happy snowy Monday, friends! Spring is off to a rocky start with this dumping of snow, so let’s look back a couple days to my trip to Denver with Curtis to visit my brother Nick and his girlfriend Molly.
We were lucky enough to grab direct flights there and back, and were graciously greeted with a box of Voodoo Donuts when we arrived. This is my only picture before we each grabbed one and inhaled them!
As you will see, and as you can see already from this first picture, our trip to Denver was very food oriented, and so so delicious! Our first real food stop was Avanti. They call themselves a collective eatery, and they were essentially an adult food court with premium restaurants with two large bars, a couple awesome outdoor seating areas and fantastic decor. Curtis, Molly and I got food from Poco Torteria while Nick got pizza from Brava. It was a Thursday night and packed to the gills, but we managed to find a spot and enjoy our first meal in Denver.
^ Carnitas tacos & super super spicy salsa and chips from Poco
We started Friday morning off with outrageous biscuit breakfasts from Denver Biscuit Co., (which is part of Atomic Cowboy) before we headed out to Garden of the Gods.
And Garden of the Gods was amazing…
We wandered around for a couple hours, getting up and on things, had a lovely homemade lunch and explored the funky welcome center/gifts shop for way too long. It was seriously stunning! Especially with snowy Pike’s Peak in the distance (behind us in this last photo).
That ended up being our biggest outdoor adventure (besides a quick trip to Red Rocks and Lost Gulches), and the remainder of the trip was dedicated to exploring Denver. Nick’s neighborhood Baker, ended up being our favorite spot which was great because our Airbnb was also in Baker. It had so many cool little shops and bars. Here were our favorites:
This gem is full of amazing decor, a bajillion games, and reasonably priced cocktails. We also indulged in our own punch bowl (their namesake after all), which consisted of buffalo trace bourbon, pimm’s no. 6 blackberry & elderflower, hibiscus lemon tea, lemon juice – YUM.
This neighborhood coffeeshop was our morning stop when exploring Baker. My favorite was their iced mocha, while Curtis tried their Whiskey Barrel Nitro coffee – it was insane!
Our favorite little shops were Ironwood, a collective of handmade local goods, a ton (and I mean a ton) of succulents, framed butterflies and interesting books, Buffalo Exchange, a wonderful thrift store, and Fancy Tiger, another fantastic local boutique with clothes, jewelry and fragrances. I left Fancy Tiger with the most amazing Olo rollerball!
^ one of Ironwood’s many surfaces full of handmade items & succulents
^ That necklace from Fancy Tiger is just so beautiful!
Outside of Nick’s neighborhood, we enjoyed seeing Union Station, where we hung out for a couple hours one day and came back for brunch at Snooze another morning.
And we did so much more! We thoroughly enjoyed seeing Red Rocks, Lost Gulches Outlook (in Boulder near the Flatirons), checking out amazing murals in the local neighborhoods, eating at Illegal Pete’s & Torchy’s (ugh I want more!), exploring the Denver Art Museum and small shops like I Heart Denver, and soaking up Denver as much as we could!
