A weekend in Colorado!

In high school, I made a goal to visit all of my best friends’ at their respective schools. I wanted to see everyone where they were comfortable and enjoy time with friends in their college lives- so I planned visits to see them. After visiting University of Illinois, Iowa State, Georgetown, DePaul, Northwestern, Notre Dame and a few more universities, I spontaneously booked a flight to visit Jessie at University of Colorado-Boulder!

Boulder (CU) is about 25 miles from Denver, so I flew into Denver and Jessie and I had a packed weekend enjoying everything there is to do in Colorado! In fact, besides Denver and Boulder, we also made it to Estes Park, Lyons, Thornton, Louisville and Aurora in just two days! The cool thing about Boulder compared to other “college towns” was how much it offers to do- in terms of activities, entertainment, food and more. You have some places like DC and Chicago where you’re at the school to enjoy the city, and others like Ames, Columbia and Champaign where the school CREATES the city- physically and economically. The city of Boulder reminds me a lot of a newer version of Evanston, Ill. All the buildings are new and there is an endless variety of restaurants, unique stores and entertainment. It expanded outside the college campus and being Colorado, is very environmental as well (recycling, organic, the list goes on).

The beautiful Boulder apartments

I arrived on Friday morning after leaving Columbia at 2:45 a.m. and taking a 6 a.m. flight out of St. Louis. Why I thought this was a good plan, I have no idea, but the combination of my car, 5-hour energy and Jessie’s willingness to pick me up at 7:30 a.m. in Denver made it work. I was immediately astonished at the beautiful sight of mountains from the highway. We stopped off of Pearl Street (one of the main strip’s in Boulder) to eat at a breakfast restaurant called Snooze- where we had the most amazing pancakes in the world. Their flavors, I kid you not, were pineapple upside down cake, sweet potato and oreos and cream. After a brief nap and Jessie signing her lease for next year (yay having somewhere to live!), Jessie gave me a tour of campus. I always love to see how other campuses differ from my own at Mizzou, and was happy to see how similar everything was! Like Mizzou, all the buildings have the same architecture and brick on the outside, and there was always construction. Everything from the library to the student center was similar, but I have to say that CU has an amazing football stadium. Can you imagine being at a football game surrounded by mountains?

Taking a tour of campus

Being in a mountain town of Colorado, I felt like we were taking a vacation to a log cabin. Between the snow and the layout of Jessie’s apartment (see below), it was very home-y and comforting. Jessie even gave me bottles of water constantly to stay hydrated with the change in elevation, something I hadn’t even thought about. After our campus tour, we went to T.G.I. Friday’s in Thornton to meet up with some MOJO alumni from Mizzou who work at Integer, an advertising agency in Denver! They all had great insight about the current MOJO project and it was nice to see how Mizzou alumni who I was close with from The Maneater and Relay are adjusting so well to their new jobs.

The next morning, after some car trouble and random lights turning on, we drove to Estes Park, Colorado to hit up Rocky Mountain National Park and go sledding. The park was beautiful and much to my surprise (actually), the mountains had an interesting variety of rocks, and elk. We did the park our own style by having a picnic in the snow with our brown-bag lunches and roaming various areas. It was nice to observe how beautiful nature can be and how silent it was as well!

Self-timer pictures are the best!

Playing in the snow!

Lion King pose!

We stopped in the small town of Estes Park for some fudge (caramel pecan marshmallow fudge!) and drove back to Boulder. While at the park, we saw many families with young kids teaching their kids how to sled, at very young ages. Jessie pointed out that when living in Colorado, it’s normal to do that because you have to eliminate the fear of mountains early. The state itself puts a huge emphasis on mountains, nature and FAMILY fun; we passed a family fun amusement park, go-kart area or mini-golf station pretty much every 20 minutes we drove anywhere. It’s nice to know how the businesses of an entire state can rub off on its citizens’ values so strongly.

Later that evening, we had dinner at a typical Boulder sandwich place and saw the movie The Vow, ironically set in Chicago! I highly recommend it. We ended the trip by going to the Denver Art Museum and stopping by the Capitol Building to officially walk the stairs that put us “one mile above sea level” in the mile-high city. It was a wonderful weekend getaway and I’m so thankful Jessie was such a great host and had so much in store for us! 

Denver Art Museum

Seeing an acrylic painting of Estes Park, where we were
sitting the day before! How cool!

The Capitol Building

Sitting at the stair "One Mile Above Sea Level"