Destination wedding in Colorado? Here are the top things to make time for: Part 2
Convention Center Big Blue Bear 750-776 14th St, Denver, CO 80202
This is such a cool feature in the middle of Denver. Just google it! Enough said. 🐾
16th Street Mall 16th St Mall, Denver, CO 80265
This is a great opportunity to spend the day or even a couple of days in Denver. See the Blue Bear, go out to eat, and do some shopping! What’s great about this area of Denver is that the Mall is an outdoor mall. So, if you want you can take the lightrail to Denver Union Station and then the bus straight to 16th Street! If you are willing to try some sushi my favorite place to eat is Hapa Sushi. Be prepared for inappropriate names to signature sushi rolls and delicious food! 🐾
Wings over the Rockies Air & Space Museum 7711 E Academy Blvd, Denver, CO 80230
If you are an Air & Space nerd, you need to see this museum. Even if you aren’t a nerd, you need to see this museum. Tickets are about $20 per person. Harrison Ford himself helps fund the museum, run almost entirely by volunteers; it’s a retired Air Force Hanger with retired flight vehicles from WWII to Star Wars! Typically we go before lunch and then after leaving the museum, we go to the beer garden next door for lunch. I’ve had a great time every time I’ve been.
Continental Divide, CO
Also known as the Great Divide, it’s an important mountain range in the Americas. It divides the continents in half and extends all the way from the Cape Prince of Wales in Alaska to the Strait of Magellan at the southernmost tip of South America. It’s a beautiful place to go for a hike in the summer. However, if you are not familiar with snowy roads be extra careful in the winter months.
Mount Blue Sky (Formerly known as Mount Evans)
This is an incredible 14er (a mountain peak with an elevation of at least 14,000 ft) for you to add to your hiking bucket list. Absolutely beautiful! My advice is similar to the Continental Divide regarding hiking and driving.
Guanella Pass, CO
This hike is pretty fantastic all year around but in the Spring it’s ethereal! The flowers blooming everywhere make it so special. If you go at the end of the day you can stick around in the parking lot after and watch the stars come out.
St. Marys Glacier (Alice)
This is an easy hike for you non-hikers, and it’s a cool trip to take that’s not too far into the mountains. This is definitely a summer hike, something my parents and I learned the hard way! They had come to visit in March, and I made a grievous error in thinking that it wouldn’t be too snowy up there that early in the year…..There was a snowstorm happening, and halfway up, I asked my parents if they wanted to head back down, their response was, “Are you kidding me?! We get to tell people we hiked to a glacier in Colorado in the middle of a snowstorm. We are finishing this!” Needless to say, it’s a memory that we cherish despite the circumstances of my mistake.
Great Sand Dunes National Park
I recently spent a lot of time in this area of Colorado. I had an idea for a photoshoot, so I reached out to a campsite and had the honor of working with them on photos of their site and then again on my photoshoot. My suggestion to you is to make this a two or three-day trip. It is a four-hour drive south of Denver, so trying to get it all done in one day is asking for a lot. There are plenty of campsites down there, but be sure to reserve your site in advance. This is a trip I highly recommend you make in the summer. It gets cold at night in general, let alone in the colder months. It’s about $25 to get into the park for the day and I would recommend planning on spending an entire day hiking the dunes. Bring sunscreen, bug spray, a camelback, and sandals to switch into when your boots get so filled with sand it looks comical pouring it out.
