Colorado Honeymoon
Many months ago, Buds and I started dreaming of having a trip, just the two of us. I tossed the idea out to my mom, and she said, “Bring the kids to Iowa to be with me, and go wherever you want.” Buds suggested a return to Italy, and though it would have been fantastic, I wasn’t ready to be an ocean away from the children, so we talked and searched, and read, and finally hit upon Colorado. (To be clear for posterity’s sake: I thought of Colorado, Buds picked Boulder.)
We pulled out of Mom’s driveway around 9:30 on Saturday morning, and nine 1/2 hours and two pit stops later, we pulled up to our Boulder Nest. We were all settled in and ready to head out to find some dinner around 7:30 or so. The first restaurant Buds suggested, Arabesque, isn’t open for dinners, we realized after we walked to it, so we settled for Moongate, a Thai place. My meal was only fine, and Buds didn’t care much for his, so we won’t be returning here.
This is Buds looking not particularly impressed, and me trying to show the fun sculpture on the wall.
Then we walked around and enjoyed the beauty of Pearl Street, grabbed a coffee and hot chocolate at The Laughing Goat, and then headed home. The Laughing Goat has become our favorite coffee place, though we still need to try “The Cup.” I love the lovely patterns two of my three hot chocolates have had from the Goat.
We slept great on the huge, king-sized bed in the main room of the apartment. We both woke up around 3:30 a.m., even without the Buster here, so the day had a very early start.
Off on an early morning hike, we were almost dissuaded from the journey because of the “Recent Bear Sighting” sign posted at the beginning of the trail. We decided to risk it, though I was wishing for Noa’s bear bell she chose in New Hampshire the last time we vacationed there. No bears were spotted, and we enjoyed our mini-hike.
After our hike we ambled downtown for breakfast at a random place we picked. Again, picking random places by just walking by them is not a good decision in a world with Yelp. Breakfast was filling and uninspiring.
After cleaning up, we went to a service at the UUC of Boulder. A much older and smaller congregation than ours, we enjoyed the beautiful music and the fun stories in the pastor’s message.
We spent time in the Love Nest reading, working, and planning. Then, we headed out for lunch at Salt, the restaurant I had been pushing for. I had a burger and Buds had a Caprese Eggs Benedict. We both hugely enjoyed our lunch there.
Boulder is filled with restaurants using locally grown, fresh from the farm, often organic ingredients. In fact, the two places we’ve eaten that weren’t that way were the two disappointments we’ve had so far.
We liked Salt so much, we went back there for dinner. We had the cheese plate appetizer, which we both loved. I chose the veggie plate sampler, and Buds had salmon. His salmon was not a hit–too salty. And of the 7 different things on my veggie plate, I liked 5 of them.
The rest of our day we spent working and reading and talking. It feels very strange not to have the children with us, and it sounded like the first night of getting Buster and Yessa to sleep was stressful for the kids and my mom, which was very distressing to me. We skyped with the kids on Sunday morning before church, and Yessa was crying and trying to hug the computer when we hung up. That was very hard.
Full Day Two
Another night of great sleep, and we actually slept until 6:30! Amazing.
The restaurant we wanted to try for breakfast, based upon Yelp reviews, didn’t open until 8, so we had plenty of time for a walk around the Univ. of Colorado campus. We were very intrigued by this long pipe, and luckily a fellow walker was able to tell us it was a steam pipe, running from a building on one side of the river clear up to a building up on the hill on the campus. He shook his head over the inefficiency of it, and we laughed at how funny it looked.
We only saw a small portion of campus, and hope to return another day to explore more thoroughly.
Back down in the touristy part of town, we headed to Foolish Craig’s for breakfast, because Yelp told us to, and it was a good decision. I loved my tofu scramble, and Buds was happy with his French Toast smothered in strawberries.
Our morning was spent lounging, reading, and working, then we headed out for a visit to Arabesque.
It was great! The lovely owner explained the various choices off the menu to us. I ordered what she told me to, and loved it, and Buds had a chicken thing, and it was great. He also had Arabic coffee, which he’d never had before, and was tickled with himself for finding us this lovely little restaurant.
Buddie’s Arabic coffee and sugar candy cubes.
A happy with himself Buds.
My fresh-squeezed carrot juice and zucchini soup.
I know this is turning into a food post, but because we’re eating out for every meal, chunks of each day do end up being about “where shall we eat, what shall we eat.” We have eaten such healthy, delicious food here. But the best is yet to come.
After lunch we drove to the Celestial Seasonings Factory to take a tour. This has been on my list of musts since I learned the factory was in Boulder. They give you tickets to hold your spot on the tour, and the ticket is a packet of tea, which I thought was really cute. You can sample 80 different teas in their sampling room, which was fun, plus they have some beautiful tea pots on display.
Buddie holding our tickets by the dragon tea pot I thought the kids would like.
Like all factory tours, we enjoyed seeing how the tea is prepared, packaged, and prepped, but, my favorite part was Buddie in a hair and beard net.
He looks a little like a member of Z.Z. Top.
Because it’s late, and I’m tired, I’m going to end by saying we ended our day with dinner at The Black Cat, which we both adored. We shared the roasted tomato salad:
which was fantastic. The various flavors meshed so amazingly well.
For entrees, Buds had rabbit, and I had scallops. His strudel was outstanding, but we both voted the scallops encrusted in potato the winner of the night.
Buddie’s rabbit
A very blurry picture of my very delicious scallops.
Thank you for joining us as we eat our way across Boulder. 😉
