Glenwood Springs (C.I.C)

I've only been to Glenwood Springs a couple of times but I love that little town! So when I got the opportunity to go up there with my husband the other day I thought it would be the perfect time to do a Curious In Colorado on this amazing, historic town.

For being such a little town Glenwood Springs has a lot to do! I have only done a few of them since I've only been a few times but I have seriously enjoyed everything I have done and look forward to doing so much more.

The drive up to Glenwood Springs from Denver is so beautiful, I love it.

The first time I went up to Glenwood Springs was with my dad. We just randomly decided to take a day trip up there and of course we didn't research or plan anything before we left so when we got there we really had no clue what there was to do or where a good place to eat was, which wasn't good since we were starving when we got into town. We were just driving down 6th Street and saw Chomp's Deli and thought we would give it a try. I am so happy that we did because it was so good! I got the Chicken Salad And Provolone Cheese Sandwich and it was beyond delicious, I highly recommend eating at Chomp's when you are in town....yum!

Then next thing we did was go to the Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park. Right down the road from Chomp's was were we caught the gondola which took us up the mountain to the Adventure Park which was awesome. At the park we went on a few of the rides, we saw the 3D movies a few times and my son played in the giant sand box for awhile. There was so much to do but it was getting late and we had a long drive home so we didn't get to do everything but next time we go we will definitely be doing more, like exploring the caves. 

The one thing my dad and I really wanted to do while in Glenwood Springs was visit Doc Holliday's grave but at the time we had no clue where it was so we left without getting to do it. So when I went up to Glenwood Springs with my husband it was the first thing on my list of things to do!

I read some reviews online and every person talked about the hike up to the cemetery and boy were they all right! It was a pretty steep hike and being so high up in altitude, my heart was beating out of my chest!

But the views along the way were gorgeous!

Being the Tombstone and Western fan that I am I was so excited when we made it to the top and found Doc Holliday's grave. So worth the hike!

Now the next couple things I have not done yet but I will do them. 
The hubby and I are talking about taking a weekend trip to Glenwood Springs and the next couple things are definitely on our list of things to do.

We both really want to stay at the Hotel Colorado. It is one of the oldest hotels in Colorado opening in 1893. Many presidents have stayed at this hotel and of course there are plenty of ghost stories, who doesn't love that?!

And of course we want to go to the hot springs, that's what Glenwood Springs is all about!

Glenwood Springs is such a nice little old town, a town that I will be making many more trips up to. If you ever find yourself in the mountains of Colorado I would definitely suggest stopping by Glenwood Springs and taking a look around.

http://www.visitglenwood.com/ 

Denver Zoo (C.I.C.)

The Denver Zoo is our home away from home, we like to go at least once a week. It is such a great place to explore, the animals are always interesting and its always entertaining...its just a great place to be outside in the fresh air, plus all the walking you do is a great workout. For this Curious In Colorado I wanted to share my families favorite place to visit here in Colorado. 

http://www.denverzoo.org/

Of course the zoo just wouldn't be the zoo without a ton of animals. We have actually been lucky enough to feed the rhinos which was an amazing life experience! The Denver Zoo is full of some of the loveliest, exotic, beautiful and dangerous animals.  

There are so many awesome animals to see at the zoo and there are constantly new babies which I am a sucker for...they are always so cute. We seriously love all the animals but the hippos are my husband and sons favorite and the otters and elephants are mine.

There is always an animal show going on somewhere in the park and I suggest checking out as many of them as you can. They are fun and very informational.

http://www.denverzoo.org/plan-your-visit/feedings-showtimes

There are a few animal houses around the zoo that are definitely worth checking out.

The Elephant House is the newest addition to the zoo and its a great way to see the elephants and rhinos up close. There are also TVs inside that are constantly playing videos of the animals and giving you information on them.

Tropical Discovery is where you will find the snakes, lizards, fish, crocodiles and lots more creepy crawly critters!

The Pachyderm Habitat is our favorite, its not that big but this is where some of our favorite animals live...hippos and rhinos. This is also where our friend Dave works, he is the one that wrote the amazing children's book Narayani: The Unicorn Of Nepal, so getting to chat with him is an extra high light of our zoo visits.

Bird World is full of the most beautiful birds and one sneaky sloth. My family and I always play "find the sloth" when we go into Bird World because the little guy is always hiding high up in the tree tops of the last bird room. It is just an awesome building to walk through since its like walking through the jungle and the birds just walk all around you.

There is also the Lorikeet Adventure which my son loves because he gets to feed the birds, its a pretty fun experience.

There are also a lot of little activities around the zoo for the kiddos to play with or on...

Drums, a jump mat and a covered wagon with two very old ox to climb on.

My sons favorite is this mommy and baby hippo statue that he climbs up on then slides down the side of.

There are also rides to go on... 

The rides are totally reasonably priced.

The carousel is my sons favorite and it is a lot of fun. Its fun running around trying to get on the animal that you want. We go on this every time we go to the zoo, it never gets old.

There is also a mini train that goes around in a circle. I suggest going on it if you have never been on it before but we hardly ever ride it, its fun but its not that entertaining.

If you get hungry there are PLENTY of places to get food!

There is the Samburu Grille near the zoo entrance which is a cafeteria style dinning place with a pretty large selection of food and indoor seating.

Then there are a few little stands that have drinks, pop corn, ice cream, cotton candy and more.

The Brown Bear has a bit more food selection then the food stands but not as much as the Samburu Grille plus it is all outdoors.

We haven't tried the food truck yet that is next to Bird World, its pretty new, but from what I have heard they have some really tasty food.

We have however eaten at Kamala Cafe and it is good, probably our favorite place to eat at the zoo. It is Asian food and it is really good.

There is another restaurant called Northern Shores Cafe which is very similar to The Brown Bear with pizza, fries, chicken fingers and a bit more.

We will eat at the restaurants every once in awhile but what we really like to do is bring a picnic and sit in the grass area near the hippos to eat. I bought a plastic tablecloth from The Dollar Tree that makes a great picnic blanket since one side is plastic and the other is soft.

And for the adults wanting to make your zoo trip a bit more fun and interesting they now serve beer.

The zoo is constanly putting on special events such as...
Do At The Zoo, Ice Cream Social, Brew At The Zoo, Boo At The Zoo, Zoo Lights, Zoo Year's Eve and a lot lot more. We have been to Boo At The Zoo and Zoo Lights and it is such a great experience.
http://www.denverzoo.org/events

Like I said the Denver Zoo is our favorite place to visit in Colorado so of course I totally recommend it, its a must if you are visiting or living in Colorado....love!

Morrison (C.I.C.)

I love exploring small towns and luckily Colorado has a ton for me to explore...like Morrison.

Morrison is a lovely little historic town that sits right off of Interstate 70, it is one of my favorite places to visit.

One of my favorite things to do in Morrison is hike. 

On this day my family and I took a little hike around the Red Rocks Amphitheater which was beautiful. But there are 4 trails in and around Morrison that are great to hike, click here to read more about those trails.

Another fun thing to do while in Morrison is to check out the Red Rocks Amphitheater even if there isn't a concert going on. 

Red Rocks Amphitheater is my favorite places to see a concert here in Colorado but I also like to just hang out here to take in the view. 

If you are into fitness you should give the stairs a try, there is nothing like running up 192 stairs at 6,400 feet.

After our hikes we like to stroll on into town. 

The town of Morrison is so small, so quaint and so full of character. There are a bunch of little shops and a lot of places to eat.

Our favorite restaurant in Morrison is the Morrison Inn.

When my mom and I go there we always munch on their super yummy chips and queso dip but when I go with my hubby we cant help but go all out and order one of their delicious meals, I always get the Macho Burrito with shredded chicken, and finish it up with some fried ice cream.

Of course we cant forget about the Morrison Inn Margaritas!

Every time we go we order a new flavor of margarita and we are never disappointed. This time my husband and I decided to try and concur a 60oz strawberry banana margarita and concur it we did...it may have taken us a few hours but we did it!

The other thing I love about the Morrison Inn is its patio.

Their patio sits on top of the building which is so awesome. They have a bar outside and a small stage for live music. 

All and all the Morrison Inn is just a cool, fun, unique and delicious restaurant that I highly recommend!

Like I said Morrison is one of my favorite little towns to visit and I definitely think that you should visit it too!

Morrison Colorado

http://town.morrison.co.us/

Life

If you are one of my blog regulars, or if you just stop by from time to time, then you might have noticed that I didn't post a post yesterday. This is because I really have nothing new to post right now. Life has been very hard and very busy and I haven't had the time to create the blogs that I had been planning on posting and I have pretty much posted all of my back ups, hints all the recent recipe posts.

On April 1st I got a phone call from my family in Oregon telling me that my Grandpa's doctors had given him only 24 to 48 hours, my Grandpa had been battling liver cancer for the last two years, so I threw some stuff in a couple suitcases and my family and I took the first flight that we could get out of Denver. We landed in Portland early Wednesday morning, April 2nd, and drove straight to my grandparents house to say our goodbyes. My grandpa passed away that night surrounded by his family.

I spent 3 weeks in Oregon with my family helping get done what needed to be done and trying to cope with my Grandpa's passing with everyone else in my family. 

 I miss you grandpa...so much!

I am now back in Colorado and trying to get back to my regular life but its hard since my life isn't what it regularly was, every day it gets harder because it becomes a bit more real. Blogging is my outlet, it is something I really love to do and it will help get me through this tough time. I am looking forward to getting back on track and getting new posts posted so stay tuned!

Nederland (C.I.C)

My mom and I love exploring Colorado's great outdoors when she comes to visit, so one sunny day we packed a picnic and drove up to Boulder Falls!

Unfortunately we were met with this sign when we got there....Fail!

 Disappointed we walked back to the car which was parked in the pull off "parking lot" across from the falls. Before we packed up and left we looked over the wall of the "parking lot" and saw this. So we decided to be a bit adventurist and climb down the side of the road to play in the water and have our picnic.

The water felt amazing and everything was so beautiful! 

Our picnic was fun and scrumptious!

I don't know about you but I kinda love impromptu adventures!

After our food was gone and we had played in the water for awhile we ventured a little more west into the town of Nederland on a quest for some icecream.

Nederland had some of the best signs I have ever seen!

They also have a cool covered bridge for you to walk over instead of walking on the side of the road.

We were so thirsty after hiking around and playing in the water that when we came upon Buffalo Bill's Coffee and Confections we stopped in to get some iced tea before we ventured on up the road to the ice cream shop.
This place was awesome! It was 3 train cars that were filled with old furniture. I do have to say that the service wasn't the best though. I went up to the counter twice to get a tea refill and there was no one anywhere to be found both times which was really frustrating because I was really thirsty!

Next on our walk we found a carousel, The Carousel Of Happiness, and decided to take a ride. It was a great carousel, it was more old fashioned then the ones now a days.

 After both of our unexpected pit stops we finally found the ice cream shop, Blue Owl Books. I'm not going to lie I was a skeptical when I saw the outside of the building but it was seriously the best ice cream I have had in the longest time! We talked to one of the employees and he told us that the guy who makes the ice cream for them lives in Lakewood Colorado and only makes 3 tubs of ice cream every couple of months!

Nederland was a cool little town to see and I would go back but I definitely wouldn't plan a whole day trip there because there really isn't that much to do or see, I think we pretty much did everything they had to offer. We were also disappointed because ALL of the little shops along the road were closed for some odd reason, it was the middle of the day in the middle of the week which doesn't make sense to me but oh well! 

Nederland Colorado
http://nederlandco.org/

Narayani: The Unicorn Of Nepal (Animal Conservation)

The Denver Zoo is a huge part of my families life, when the weather is nice you will find us there. We know the zoo like the back of our hands and we know most of the animals by name. My families favorite is the Pachyderms and spending as much time as we have in and around the Pachyderm house watching the giant gray creatures that live there we have gotten to know one of the zoo keepers, Dave Johnson. Dave is one amazing human being! When he isn't at the Denver Zoo taking care of our beloved hippos and rhinos he is traveling to Nepal to help with animal conservation. A few years ago Dave wrote a children's book called The Elephants Of Denver with all the proceeds from the sale of his book going to aid in the conservation efforts to save endangered animals in Nepal. Last year Dave wrote a new children's book called Narayani: The Unicorn Of Nepal to help raise more money for Nepal's conservation efforts.

We took our son to the Denver Zoo for his birthday and as a birthday gift Dave gave our son a copy of his new book. The story of Narayani is an amazing tale and the illustrations are so much fun to look at, they were all done using Dave's personal photos from Nepal. It has quickly become our families favorite book. I read it to my son almost every night and I often find him sitting in his chair looking at all the colorful pictures. 

The best part of this book is that every single penny of every single book that is purchased goes to the Rocky Mountain AAZK (American Association Of Zoo Keepers) and Nepal's Conservation.

You can find this special book in the Denver Zoo's gift shop. So if you live in Colorado or are just visiting please stop by and pick up your copy of Narayani: The Unicorn Of Nepal today and help save these majestic, endangered animals.

http://www.denverzoo.org/