Colorado | Day One

Boulder, Colorado

This is going to be a different type of post. I’m going to do a series of posts about Colorado! I was there for about a week in September 2019 with my fiancé (now husband) and there was just too much to fit into one page.

We flew in super early (arriving at 8am), picked up the rental car (upgraded to a cherry red mustang for free!) and drove into Boulder. On the way we stopped at a little restaurant called Mr. Egg. I had biscuits and gravy along with an omelette filled with chicken, onions, spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes, and broccoli. Between the two of us we had a lot of food for not a lot of $$. Would recommend Mr. Egg!

By 11am we had made it to the Flatirons, a mountain in Boulder with five giant slabs of rock on the sides. We hiked the Royal Arch Trail. It was a very strenuous 3-mile trail up the mountain through the trees that finished with a wide, sweeping view of Boulder, and of course a big rock arch. The view was worth the steep hike up! Definitely bring hiking poles if you want to save your knees on the way down.

We then made our way into Estes Park, our final destination for the week. The drive curves in and out of mountains and runs alongside a river so it is very pretty. After stopping at Safeway to load up on groceries we made it to our Airbnb. We stayed at The Eaglecliff Escape. It was quite possibly the cutest Airbnb I have ever stayed at and was in a great location too-only about a 2 minute drive to the Beaver Meadows entrance of the Rocky Mountain National Park and about 5 minutes from downtown Estes Park. We had a little deck with chairs to sit with a lovely view of the mountains.

our airbnb: the cutest little house very close to the park

We went into the park and did two shorts hikes around Sprague Lake and Bear Lake. Both are under a mile each and almost entirely flat. However, that does not mean the views weren’t stunning! With all the fall colors on the aspen trees, these little lakes were the perfect start to our trip.