After leaving my car at a parking garage near the mall (and getting a surprisingly good photo op for a parking garage), I stopped into a coffee shop because I was cold an in need of some hot chocolate. Amante Coffee was close by, and while small, it was a good place to stop. After getting my bearings, I made my way up to Pearl Street, serendipitously happening upon the aforementioned chocolate store, Piece, Love & Chocolate, which I'd heard about from a fellow chocoholic I follow on Facebook. I was torn between the chocolate salted caramel pumpkin cream pie, pumpkin chocolate cake, and dark chocolate pumpkin cheesecake. It was a bit early in the day for dessert, so I ventured forth, promising to come back later. (I made good on my promise and ordered the dark chocolate pumpkin cheesecake, and I enjoyed it even though I couldn't quite finish it.)
I walked up and down Pearl Street for a while, and wasn't overly impressed by any of the stores. I hunkered down on a bench to find a place to eat and warm up. Of the options nearby, I chose West Flanders Brewing Company, which had only opened a couple of weeks before my trip. I was very impressed by the service and the food--for a place that hadn't been open long, the staff seemed to all have their acts together. I chose the Maui pizza for a lunch, a departure from a typical Hawaiian pizza, and I was very, very glad I did. The crust and the ham were glazed with honey and the pizza (which included scallions and of course pineapple) was covered in mozzarella and gruyere, which was a welcome addition. Thinking of this pizza now makes me wish I had more. Since it was only about noon when I stopped in, I only had a sample of one beer, which I enjoyed. If I make it back to Boulder one day, I will definitely visit West Flanders again.
I got a message from my AirBNB host Andria that the house was available to me, so I drove there after lunch. I wanted to shower, chill and regroup because I knew it would be a late night--I was going to see New Order! I was surprised to find that 1stBank Center reminded me of a somewhat larger and much nicer high school gym and that there were no seats on the floor, but since there would be lots of dancing, having no seats on the floor made sense. 1stBank Center is a little more than halfway from Denver to Boulder and can be seen from the highway. Along the highway, there is an odd smattering of places to shop and eat; I'm pretty sure that there are two AMC theaters and Targets within maybe five miles of each other along that highway.
The next morning, I set out for Rocky Mountain National Park. I drove up to the cute town of Estes Park, which serves as a gateway to the park. I think it also is a bit of a resort town or getaway for locals--there seemed to be lots of families and older couples there at the time. There were several fires throughout the park, which caused some sections to be closed off to visitors. A number of pictures that I took featured the smoke from those fires in the background.
I drove through the park for probably an hour or two, so paying $20 to get in stung a little (the ticket was good for a week, but was non-transferable). The weather on the drive toward the park had been great, but now dark clouds were moving in rapidly--I remember seeing a sign noting that the weather changes quickly in the mountains. On the ground, it was around 70 I think--gorgeous weather. But once I got to about 11,000 feet I saw snowflakes! It was at that point at the Forest Canyon Overlook that I got the best pictures of my trip.
Heading back to my home base while in Boulder, I stopped in Lyons for a coffee shop break. I'd made a note to stop in town on the way back from the mountains because Lyons looked like such a cute town. In a tiny blink-and-you-miss-it town, there's a sushi joint, a pizza place, coffee shops, boutique-type stores, and a brewery. I got a chai and a pumpkin cream cheese brownie from the Barking Dog Cafe (which has fantastic Yelp reviews). That brownie was so good that it spurred me to try to replicate the recipe at home (I met with moderate success).
Once I got back to Boulder, I ran into awful traffic because the University of Colorado was playing that night. (I'd passed through the campus on my way to Pearl Street Mall the day before and thought how beautiful a campus it was.) I could definitely hear the roar of the crowd from the house where I stayed. Because traffic was so bad, I didn't want to venture too far from the house, and I lucked out because there was Indian food very nearby at Tandoori Grill (there are great Yelp reviews of this place). The service was good, and so was the food. I ate it all so that I wouldn't have leftover the next day, which was probably a mistake, but it was definitely enjoyable. Afterward, I got some frozen yogurt from a place in the same shopping center (gotta cool off after spicy Indian food, after all); sadly, dessert was nowhere near as enjoyable.
On my final morning in Colorado, I decided to really go all-out for breakfast. It's rare that I really get a huge, heaping breakfast or brunch, so I figured I needed to work on that while on vacation. Nothing really stood out to me when searching the internet for options--that is, until I found Lucile's. A New Orleans praline waffle was on the menu and I couldn't resist. Who doesn't love a good Belgian-style waffle, especially when studded with pecans? Locals LOVE this place, and rightfully so. I was fortunate to get there when I did, as I snagged the last table. When seating is scarce, tables become communal, so a couple of friendly locals (one of whom is the co-owner of Two Sole Sisters, a highly-reviewed shoe store on Pearl Street Mall) who got in after I did got seated with me, and we chatted for a bit. The hot chocolate I ordered was tasty, but nothing could prepare me for this...
That was a delicious, mammoth waffle with loads of whipped cream and strawberries--it was several minutes before I discovered the banana slices underneath the cream.
I was also determined to find Avery Tap Room before I left. I hadn't been to any Colorado wineries and I hadn't had much beer (or at least not much that I'd cared for), so I felt I needed to make up for it. They opened at 11 a.m., which suited me because I needed to be back at the Denver airport by 2--all the other wineries and breweries didn't open until later in the day. My iPhone was not the best at providing directions, and so by 11:15, when I arrived at Avery, the place was already full--I kid you not. I got seated with some other visitors from out of town, and we chatted and sampled each other's beers--there were so many beers to choose from, you could not feasibly sample them all in one visit unless you really are a glutton for punishment. I ordered a chicken wrap to accompany my beer samples, knowing I'd have to drive back to Denver before too long.
Before long, I was back on the road, rapidly accruing tolls as I drove along a highway that went through the middle of nowhere (no, seriously, it was rapid--the speed limit was 75, and it was awesome). I checked my rental car back in with Hertz (a very easy, painless process) and wandered around the Denver airport, searching for wine and sustenance (mainly wine--why aren't there more wine bars in airports?!) before my flight. (As far as sustenance goes, you should really get one of the Hope's Royale cookies from Hope's Cookies. Those things are CRAZY good.)
While I liked Colorado and I'm glad I went there and there are things that I would possibly like to go back there for, I found Colorado very weird. For example: A Starbucks next to corn fields and oil drills? Really? Its scattered communities and malls along the highway from Denver to Boulder and Denver's really odd and disjointed organization were nonsensical. But maybe that's supposed to be part of Colorado's charm...
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