design finch

We just returned from a week-long vacation to Colorado where we enjoyed cool weather, beautiful mountains, and wonderful friends. So, prepare yourself for the longest blog post ever. With such an amazing backdrop, every photo turned out looking like a postcard and I had a hard time narrowing them down!

First, we spent a couple days exploring the Aspen area. Before we left home, I bid on hotels through Priceline and, because we were there during off-season, we luckily scored an amazing deal on a room at the swanky Viceroy Resort in Snowmass. Our first night there, we had dinner in Snowmass Village overlooking the ski slopes. We dined outside and it was chilly enough that they had the fire pits going! The next morning we woke up early to hike the Rim Trail. When we got to the top of this trail, we discovered an awesome marble yoga circle with stunning 360° views of the surrounding peaks. Of course, I insisted that we spend some time there practicing yoga poses! (Fortunately, Jason was a good sport about it and humored me for a while.) After we hiked back down the mountain, we had lunch in downtown Aspen and spent the rest of the afternoon exploring.

Oh, Aspen, how you charm me with your beautiful scenery and quaint small town vibe, yet you know I can not afford you. You really think you are something special with your multi-million dollar home prices! I’m sure living among rich and beautiful movie stars is overrated, anyway.

(On a side note, Jason swears he saw Connie Britton, who played Tami Taylor in Friday Night Lights, riding a bicycle through downtown Aspen. Tami, if you are reading this please confirm whether or not it was really you. Also, Texas forever!)

After leaving Aspen, we stopped in Vail for a couple hours to look around and get dinner. I’d never been to Vail before and my first impression was that it felt a bit like Disney World. Most of the streets in the village area are pedestrian-only and there were gorgeous flowers everywhere we looked. I can imagine that during ski season the whole village turns into a Winter Wonderland.

We had never been to Boulder either and spent a day just exploring the town. It reminded us in many ways of a mini Austin, except with mountain views! We enjoyed breakfast at a cafe on Pearl Street while doing some serious people-watching! (It was move-in weekend for Colorado University, so the whole town was swarming with excited college students and nervous parents….oh, and smelly hippies, although I think we were the only ones that noticed.) One of my favorite places in Boulder was the Chautauqua National Historic Landmark at the base of the Flatiron Mountains.

After leaving Boulder, we continued on to Fort Collins to visit our dear friends Christian and Max who recently moved there from Austin. Apparently we were so excited to see them that we forgot to take any pictures of Fort Collins itself. I just have a couple pictures from our morning of rock climbing at Horsetooth Reservoir. Now I wish I’d taken some pictures of Fort Collins’ cute downtown, but at the time we were too busy chowing down on yummy Mexican food and cupcakes!

Christian and Max were the perfect hosts and tour guides! They took us to Estes Park, which is only a 30 minute drive from Fort Collins. We hiked around Bear Lake, Nymph Lake and Dream Lake on our way up to Emerald Lake where we enjoyed a picnic lunch with incredible views of Hallett Peak. There was still some snow up there and we actually saw a marmot, too!

Jason and I spent a couple hours strolling around Winter Park. The wildflowers were absolutely gorgeous there! It was in Winter Park that we ate one of the most delightful things we’ve ever tasted – a Nutella Crepe from Goodys. Let me tell you, that crepe was heaven. on. earth. The scenery was just the cherry on top!

There are a ton of neat things to do in Denver – we explored downtown and the 16th Street Mall, cheered on the Rockies at a baseball game, made a pilgrimage to the amazing REI flagship store, strolled through City Park, hiked around Red Rocks, and ate frozen yogurt for more meals than I care to mention. The highlight of our time in Denver was meeting up with our friend Ashley for breakfast. We all went to high school together and it had been a while since we’d seen each other, so it was great to catch up!

It was really hard stepping off the plane in Tulsa into triple-digit temperatures. We immediately started planning another Colorado trip! What are some places we should visit on our next mountain adventure?