Lunch in Denver

With barely two hours to spare in Denver, we beelined for the hip LoHi neighborhood, another stop on our could-we-live-here tour. LoHi, so-called because it encompasses the lower stretches of Highland, was beckoning us with its foodie haven small restaurants and bungalow houses. We’d been through here once before during Kristen’s business trip back in February, but this time we couldn't wait to sample some of the local fare.

So we got straight to business, settling down at Linger restaurant just in time before the kitchen closed during the lull between lunch and dinner. After noticing sweet potato waffle fries on the menu, we knew we’d arrived at the right place. In addition to the dream-come-true sweet potato goodness, our lunch consisted of braised goat tacos, and a delicious and beautiful salad.

Sweet potato waffle fries at Linger

Goat tacos with feta, cucumber-red onion slaw, dill, mint & chimichurri

Crispy lentil salad with goat cheese, gala apples, and pistachio paste!

We stopped in a coffeshop around the corner where we ordered some energy to go before winding through the neighborhood, checking out potential properties. While Denver isn’t quite Boulder, it still seems like a great place to live.

And from there, we turned east with our sights set on Kansas, where we’d hope to camp. Colorado, we hope to see you (and your prairie dogs) again soon!

Boulder, We Love You

During our stay in Colorado, we made Broomfield our home-base due to its central location between Boulder and Denver. Plus, it's where Loren’s friend from middle school, Jordan, lives in a spacious apartment. A few hours after we arrived, the air mattress was beckoning to us, partially owing to our climbing extravaganza a few hours earlier. And once we started sleeping it was hard to stop! We woke around 11am, still feeling like it had to be 8ish, and quickly got movin’.

Our mission for the day was to see as much of Boulder as possible and to scope out potential areas where we might want to live. Checking out Trulia searches (for rentals) in every neighborhood we drove through, we quickly realized that Boulder is a pricy place to live. Makes sense, because it seems like one of the best places in the country.

We also wanted to check out a nearby town called Longmont, which is about 15 minutes northeast of Boulder. While in our opinion Longmont is a tad in the wrong direction (um, hello? the mountains and outdoor Meccas are to the west!), we totally fell in love with the quaint and historic-looking neighborhoods that are WAY more affordable than their Boulder equivalents. Paying a visit to a bulk foods store on the main strip in Longmont, we again stocked up with some roadtrip-friendly noshing foods, and then made our way back to Boulder.

Bulk food store in Longmont, Colorado

Any visit to Boulder is not complete without a stroll down Pearl Street, which is dotted with hip restaurants, bars, outdoor outfitters, knick knack stores, and performing street musicians. By then, we were ready for lunch and our timing couldn’t have been more perfect - it was happy hour! Grabbing seats outside at a restaurant called Hapa Sushi, we enjoyed a few appetizers and some fruity sake in the warm afternoon sun. We normally love raw fish, but instead opted to save some dough by ordering the half-priced happy hour fare, which was nonetheless delicious.

Chicken skewers at Hapa Sushi

Grilled shrimp at Hapa Sushi

Pork wraps

Afterward, we continued down the strip and landed in a Fro-yo and mochi shop called Smooch, but ended up ordering a delicious homemade coconut lemongrass popsicle. Gotta try that recipe someday with our popsicle molds! Next, we found a European market called Bayleaf that was a wonderland of chocolates, specialty foods, and beautiful books, among other things. We instantly noticed a huge display of our favorite brand of chocolate, Chocolove, which is made just a few miles away in Boulder. For a couple years we have been buying their almond and sea salt dark chocolate. But, this shop boasted a flavor we'd never seen - we found out the chocolate bar is named after the store (the only place it's sold), and that it's almost the same as our favorite bar but with the addition of toffee. Of course we picked up a bar to try later.

Chocolove Rainbow at Bayleaf in Boulder

For dinner, we met up with our host at Mountain Sun Pub & Brewery, a microbrewery on Pearl Street. The beers are made here and only served in-house. They were fantastic, and so were the burgers we ate to soak it up!

Mountain Sun Brewery

We had a great stay in Boulder, which confirmed our previous ideas that we could (and should) live here. Awesome mountains that offer climbing by summer and snowboarding by winter, a great food scene with emphasis on local and sustainable ingredients, a small-town feel supplanted by the University... what more could one want?

Climbing in Colorado

The second pinnacle of our roadtrip (if there can be such a thing) was spending time in our possible future-home-state of Colorado in the summertime (a first for Kristen). Adding to the awesomeness was a chance to meet up with two of our friends and fellow climbers, Berto and Bern, who live in the area. Bern took the four of us to an awesome cliff in Golden, just a ten-minute hike from the roadside parking area.

Bern

Berto

We aren’t super comfortable lead climbing outdoors, so we let our friends start off, and then belay us as we top-roped. We got to send four different routes, ranging from 5.8 to 5.10 in difficulty, which, for us, definitely boosted our confidence a tad for our next outdoor climbing trip.

Afterwards, we soaked our feet in the cold creek just down the hill, and then drove into the historic downtown of Golden for some eats. Not far from where we were, the Coors factory, the largest single-site brewery, churns out millions of gallons of watery beer each year. Bern insisted on taking us to D’Deli, a cool little gourmet sandwich shop on the main street, with such sandwich names as The Oinker, Maui Waui, and The Jackwaggon. Bern and Berto both got a Buffalo Chicken sandwich, while the two of us split a Prime Time and Piggly Wiggly.

D'deli sandwiches

For dessert, even though we were already full, we made a stop two doors down at Golden Sweets for delicious homemade ice cream. We both fell in love with the same sample and each got one scoop of the coconut chocolate chunk. Delish!

Coconut Chocolate ice cream in Golden

Thanks to Berto and Bern for showing us a great time (and climbing spot)! Hope to be back soon.

A Very Sparse Drive Through Wyoming

After a quick pop-in visit to the Grand Tetons, we had to get crackin’; our next stop was the Denver area, and at the rate we were going, we wouldn’t arrive until 11pm. Just south of the mountains, we found ourselves in the way cool-looking resort town of Jackson, famed for amazing snow sports, restaurants, and celebrity residences. Again, we couldn’t linger long, we had to get into Colorado, but what we saw, we liked. This town is definitely on our list of places to get back to, especially in the wintertime for some snowboarding.

Then we drove for, like, 10 hours through one of the most boring parts of the country, west to east across southern Wyoming. There were thousands of snowdrift “fences” all over the landscape. There are probably more of those wooden structures then people in this state (it is, after all, the state with the smallest population). The only real saving grace of this super boring drive: there are pronghorn all over the place, right near the road in spots.

Pronghorns

The one other notable stop we made was in Pinedale, where we yelped to seek out a coffee shop. However, we were led astray and we walked into a health food store, which ended up being pretty cool: it had a great selection of foods plus an adorable and playful dog that was determined to play fetch with us as soon as we walked through the door. Of course we obliged. At one point while Kristen was talking to the store owner, the dog sneakily stuck the tennis ball into the space between her knees, slowly backing away and waiting for the throw. Apparently the dog was a red heeler, and was raised right there in the store as a tiny puppy. After stocking up on a few roadtripping snacks, we drove down the street to the real coffee shop (and restaurant), Rock Rabbit Coffee & Bistro. Seemed like a pretty cool place for a sleepy town like Pinedale.

Eight hours later, our mission was to find a campsite in the mountains west of Boulder, but (again) we’d neglected to realize that it was Saturday night, so we'd be competing with outdoorsy Boulderites to find a spot. Around 11pm, after driving past three campgrounds with their signs reading “FULL,” we lucked out with a spot just south of Nederland. Fourth time’s a charm, right? So we set up our tent and sleeping bags, burned a tiny fire to basically finish our firewood, and finally got to bed sometime around midnight. Phew, what a long day!