denver, co. (part I)

Cade and I are back home now after a nice long weekend exploring the beautiful city of Denver, Colorado. I knew the city (and state) would be beautiful, but what I didn't know was how incomprehensible it was going to be when it came time to talk about it. I've already decided that I am going to split this post up into two parts (part I and part II) just so that I can rest assured that I am giving every great detail that I possibly can. So, to start .. here is a list of all the restaurants / attractions that we visited during our trip: 

Breakfast: 

Devil's Food Bakery
Devil's Food: The Cookery at Myrtle Hill
Jelly Cafe
Denver Biscuit Company

Hiking: 

Garden of the Gods
Red Rock Park
Lookout Mountain

Dinner / Breweries: 

Falling Rock Taphouse
Kachina Cantina
The Sportsbook Bar and Grill
Comrade Brewing
Copper Kettle Brewing Company

Here are some pictures from the first day of our trip:

I never realized how friendly everyone is in Denver but there's a really good chance that the friendliest person in the entire city works here... I hate myself for not knowing his name, but he was so kind and patient as we navigated the menu and figured out what we wanted. On top of that, the pastries were incredible. Overall just a really great start to our Denver trip. Below, we got the blueberry peach strudel and the chocolate croissant! 

Not pictured is the actual breakfast itself which I got their Eggs Benedict - best I've ever had! 

After we filled our bellies with a delicious breakfast we headed about an hour south towards Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. The views on the ride there were tremendous and it was hard to hold to focus on anything else... Thank goodness I wasn't driving ;) 

Below are just a handful of the pictures I took during our ~ 4 mile hike.

(It was all so beautiful and serene, I had to snap a selfie to prove it was actually me standing there...) 

Here is Cade, me and my aunt K!

Pictures really don't do it justice... The mountains were huge and they stretched for miles and miles. Really incredible...

For dinner we went to Kachina and had tacos. I also had one too many margaritas, but hey~ when in Denver! The service was excellent and the food was delicious! 

Coconut flan! 

Homemade ice cream! The furthest right is a sweet corn flavor (just ok..), the middle is banana (AH-MAZING!), and the left most is a dark rum flavor which was also so flavorful! 

How soon is too soon to go back to Denver?

Thanks for stopping in for part one. I plan to have the next part up later this week... for now I must catch up on sleep. That 2-hour time difference impacted my precious sleep schedule and no one wants to be around a sleepy/irritated Renee.