Oh my goodness, we just had the most fun trip. Several months ago (like back in May), we had the idea to go with Jeff and Elizabeth Smith to an away Falcons game this season. When Denver came up on the schedule, we quickly settled on it. What a great idea!
We flew in on Thursday evening and headed straight to The Brown Palace Hotel which is an awesome historic hotel in downtown. It really was a lovely place to stay.
Looking down on the lobby. We enjoyed listening to the band that played here a couple of nights and enjoyed some late night drinks after fun days.
On Friday morning, we drove about 45 minutes over to Boulder. Such a beautiful place to explore! We drove through some of the mountains and took in the amazing views. We went to the National Center for Atmospheric Research where we saw great views of the Flatirons.
We strolled around the Pearl Street Mall which was lovely. So many great stores to explore and we had a delicious lunch at Eureka (and then dessert at a fabulous chocolate shop). We couldn't have asked for a better day for exploring.
We turned in a little early as we were all trying to adjust to the altitude difference!
On Saturday, we drove about 1.5 hours to Colorado Springs. It was another beautiful day to enjoy. We decided to take a Jeep tour around the Garden of the Gods. It was so much fun!
We had great views of Pike's Peak and Cheyenne Mountain
The Garden was gorgeous, and had so many cool structures. God makes awesome art!
The tour also went through Manitou Springs which was a really cool little town. They have 7 natural springs that you can simply walk up to for a water break. The one we tried tasted a little like seltzer water, and honestly, we weren't big fans. Fun to try though!
We had lunch at the incredible Broadmoor Hotel's Italian restaurant. Oh my goodness, we all loved this and wished we could have eaten every single meal there. Amazing.
This was a gorgeous hotel filled with old-world charm.
Before heading back to Denver, we stopped at the Air Force Academy. It was a beautiful campus, and we stopped by their famous chapel. Unfortunately for us, they had weddings scheduled all day, so we couldn't tour the Christian part of the chapel; we did see the Catholic, Jewish and Buddhist chapels though which were lovely too.
Sunday came and our reason for the trip arrived! We Ubered over to Mile High Field and took some time walking around to explore. It was a pretty cool stadium.
Wayne had decided the week before the game to bring Zac out for his birthday. Our cousins, Jeff and Parker, joined in from Atlanta and met up with our cousin, Kyle's, family who lives in Denver. Kyle and Atticus joined them for the game. We all met up to tailgate for just a bit beforehand. We were here and hoping the Falcons would rise up!
We had great seats, and all the people around us were so nice. We had a fantastic time watching the Falcons win 23-16! It was so much fun!
It took awhile, but we finally made it back to the hotel. Ryan and I then went over to Kyle's house in Centennial, CO to visit with his family, Mandy, Atticus, Finn and Ella, not to mention Wayne, Zac, Jeff and Parker. Mandy cooked a big pot of chili for us to enjoy. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves; what a great way to end the trip!
This was a great trip. Clearly the Falcons need us to do this more often as they've lost the two games since this one. We're already talking about next season's trip!
