Since Facebook was so kind to remind me that this week is the anniversary of the time my boyfriend and I went to Colorado, that will be my next travel post! Most of my past travel posts will probably not be in any kind of chronological order, I’ll just post about them when I feel like talking about them.
My boyfriend grew up in Colorado, in a little town about 30 minutes outside of Steamboat Springs. He still has some family that lives there, so when we went we were lucky enough to be able to stay with them for most of our stay. The first night we got there (I don’t know the exact date), I remember it was about midnight when we landed in Denver, and we took an airport shuttle to the car rental place. When we got there, there was a line, which we thought was odd for such a late hour. The people that were already there let us know there was only 1 person working and they seemed to be struggling. My saint of a boyfriend stood in line while I laid down on a bench trying not to fall asleep (I can sleep anywhere, but have been known to snore a bit). I remember when we finally got our rental car it was after 2am, and we were exhausted.
My boyfriend had actually considered driving to get to his family’s house, but it was a 3ish hour drive. I convinced him to get a hotel room in Denver so we could sleep a little bit and drive the next day. Since he knew the area so well, we didn’t have any set plans to be anywhere at a specific time. We really only planned on hiking and him showing me around his hometown. But, what we had not realized was how hard it would be to find a hotel with vacancy at 3am 🥲 We drove to 2 before we started calling others, and I think the 3rd one we called finally said they had a room available. Little did we know that we probably would have been better off sleeping in the car. The hallways of this hotel reeked of marijuana. When we got to the room, there was a wad of bright red hair in the bathtub and when we turned on the TV, one of the corners was totally black. So we sat in this crappy hotel room, eating our fast food (not something we do at home but it was 3am and we hadn’t eaten) while watching a broken TV. Then when we laid down to sleep, the whole mattress caved into the center.
Thankfully when we woke up we had better luck. This was my first time in Colorado, and seeing mountains, and I was beyond excited! We started driving and the landscape was amazing. There are actually waterfalls off the side of the highway, and road signs for wildlife that we just don’t have in the Midwest (elk, mountain goats, ect.). It was overcast and raining in some spots, and I think that added a little more drama to it. We stopped at a sandwich shop my boyfriend use to work at for lunch, then he drove me past his high school and took me to our first hiking spot: Fish Creek Falls. Thanks to the rain, it was flowing beautifully, and now that I think about it, this was my first time seeing a natural waterfall this big. We only hiked to the waterfall and back (it was a short hike so we could continue our drive to his family’s place), and I highly recommend this if your looking for a minimal effort, maximum reward hike. If we go back I would love to go further onto the trail. When we got to our final destination, he introduced me to his family that was there (I had never met them before), and he showed me around the house that was built entirely by said family. It was beautiful! The bedrooms on the first floor have custom hand-laid wood flooring, and the entire second floor had amazing views of the mountains and a small lake to the right from large windows and a balcony across the whole front of the house. The kitchen was small but had wood counters and live edge bar seating. Afterwards we went to meet the neighbors and some family friends from out of town. We had dinner and tried watching a movie, but I kept falling asleep.
When we woke up the next morning, we headed out for our first real hike of the trip: Sand Mountain. This hike is one of my favorite hikes we have done to date. We stopped at a small store on our way out for drinks and sandwiches for our hike. We stopped at a few places on our way up to rest or for my boyfriend to tell me memories he had of a certain spot. One was a field that had big rocks on one end that he said he and his sister would play on when they were kids. The picture to the left is another small field we found that had the most incredible view (the very top is the flat spot at the top behind me, and we made it there about 40 minutes after this pic was taken). When we got to the very top (elevation 10,871 ft), I couldn’t even believe it. You could see everything! We ate our sandwiches and each had a beer while we took in the amazing scenery. I’m pretty sure I also called my mom while I was up there because I just couldn’t believe it. While I enjoyed hiking at home because it was something I could do with my dogs, I had never done anything like this before. Sand Mountain and this memory is a big part of the reason I fell in love with hiking, I think.
When we got down from the top of the mountain, my boyfriend drove us around to show me more of the other parts of his old home. We planned to hike Hahn’s Peak the next day, so we drove around the base of that mountain a little bit. He drove me through the village where he use to play with his friends as a kid. We stopped at the marina my boyfriend worked at and his old boss just happened to be there. He ended up taking us for a boat ride on the lake. It was so peaceful and relaxing, the perfect end to our amazing day. Afterwards, we went to Hahn’s Peak Cafe for dinner, that my boyfriend had been telling me about since I met him. I don’t remember exactly what we had, but I know it was good. We ended the day back at his family’s house, where we tried to watch a movie again, but I was distracted by the amazing sunset. When the movie was finally over, we went to bed. And I think that was when I realized how freakin’ DARK it gets out there. There was no moon, so you could not see anything. I know that I would not be able to sleep there alone. It was also eerily quiet, too. I am the kind of person that has to sleep with a fan on for the noise, so that kind of bothered me.
The next day, we went to Hahn’s Peak for our next hike. It was a beautiful day. I remember getting glimpses of the amazing views around us through the trees, and I also found some pieces of quartz. I remember leaving our stuff at an abandoned “cabin” (you could tell it had once been something, but the walls weren’t really standing anymore and there was no roof). This was when this hike got scary for me. The whole top of Hahn’s Peak is just rocks. There is a clear, indented path worn into these rocks from people hiking to and from the fire watch station at the top, but these rocks still moved and shifted a little bit as you walked on them. For some reason, the only thing I could picture was the rocks coming loose, causing an avalanche, and us dying. Don’t ask me why, I have no idea 😅. But we were maybe halfway from where the really rocky part started to the top and I had to sit down for a minute and I remember starting to cry because I was scared (I HATE crying, and emotions, and also am not someone who gets scared easily). My boyfriend told me we could turn around and head back down, but I was determined to get to the top after the high of our hike the day before. I think I also said something along the lines of, “I didn’t come this far to only come this far”, aka not the top. We sat there for a moment to enjoy the view as I pulled myself together, and started going up again. We were maybe halfway from the spot of my first breakdown to the top when it happened again, only this time a little more dramatic 🫠 I sat down on those stupid scary rocks, crying again, and I remember being mad at myself for being so scared. My boyfriend told me we were turning around when I was ready to move again, since we weren’t going to see anything more from the top than we already were seeing, and I told him he could go back down without me and I was going to die where I was because there was no way I was going back down those damn rocks 😂 Looking back, I think its hilarious that I told him that, but at the time I was so scared and angry with myself that I didn’t care how ridiculous I sounded. He remained calm in the face of my absurdity, and told me when I was ready, we would go down on our hands and knees, backwards, until we were off the rocks. And that is exactly what we did. Slowly, and I’m sure he felt crazy doing it with me, but I know I needed the support and he was there for me every step of the way 💙
When we got back to the car after our hike, I was just enjoying the views around us as we tried to navigate our way back towards the village. We were maybe halfway down the mountain when we heard the car making a new noise it was not making before. My boyfriend asked me to get out of the car to see if I could see anything, and sure enough, I could tell that something had gotten caught and was dragging across the rocks of the road. He then got out of the car to look at it and the underbody cover had gotten caught on something and was ripping off. We managed to pull it off the rest of the way and continue on our way. We went to Hahn’s Peak Cafe for lunch again before heading to Steamboat Springs for our last night. He had booked a room at Holiday Inn (I think?) and when he went to check in, the receptionist told us she didn’t have a booking with our name on it. He checked his booking and realized he had booked a room at a Holiday Inn in California, and the one in Steamboat was fully booked for the night 😅 It worked out for the best, though. He ended up finding an Airbnb apartment for us to stay in that was really nice. When we got there, we went to the pool the complex had, and swam a little bit. There was also a hot tub we sat in a little too long. After that, we ordered pizza from the place that was his favorite as a kid and watched a scary movie before bed.
The next morning, we drove the rest of the way to Denver to explore a little bit before our flight. We went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (we love natural history museums) and I think we actually made it through the whole museum in just a couple hours. The parts we liked the best were the dinosaurs and the gemstones. I remember a small section about horses and zebras (VERY small, I’m sure it was part of the dinosaur section) that I really enjoyed. Afterwards, we went to West of Surrender for dinner and had some really awesome drinks. I don’t remember what we ordered, but I know that it had Southwest Ranch with it, and I insisted we try to find some at home! It is basically a spicy ranch, and I LOVE some spice. Then we went to a different bar to play some pool and get another drink before our flight home.
We haven’t been back since, but I’m hoping we can make it happen sooner than later! Colorado is like nowhere else I’ve been (which isn’t many places) but I would love to do more hiking and explore Denver a little more. I have also heard the natural hot springs in Steamboat Springs are pretty cool. This is going to sound weird, but I think the biggest shock for me was when we came out of Walmart in Steamboat and there was the most amazing view of a mountain. I think I actually stopped in the doorway to just take it in and my boyfriend was confused. When I told him I had just stopped to take in the most beautiful Walmart view I’d ever seen, he just smiled and let me. He told me when he was a kid and particularly when he was working at the Marina we visited, people would tell him how lucky he was to live somewhere like that, and he had never really understood what they meant until he moved away. It was probably shell shock for him when he started dating me (Midwest grown and raised, had never traveled anywhere). There are people that live and see this kind of thing every day, and then there are people like me that are just so shocked by things like that. I had a similar experience recently when we were walking around Salt Lake City. Looking around the corner of a building and seeing a mountain in the distance instead of the sky it more road is something I’m not sure I will ever get use to.
