Wednesday was lightly-scheduled, beginning with a stop at Manitou Cliff Dwellings. While interesting, Noah’s lack of interest in exploring the structures made the stop a bit disappointing. Some town exploration was mixed with shopping and two notable meals:
- Wooglin’s Deli, near the Colorado College campus, featured great food and solid service. I had a chicken salad sandwich, Amanda ordered a BBQ chicken wrap, and Noah went with the classic peanut butter sandwich.
- Sonterra Innovative Southwest Grill provided perhaps the most enjoyable meal of our trip to date, where Amanda once again ordered fish tacos (the best so far), and I had a grilled flatiron steak and seafood enchilada combo.
Thursday was the opposite of Wednesday, with our day starting before 8:00 and ending after midnight.
Downtown Denver
After checking out of the Colorado Springs hotel, our return to Denver began downtown at the 16th Street Mall. Noah loved seeing the constant flow of buses up and down the street. Our lunch at Mad Greens, a build-your-own salad place, was relatively disappointing; Amanda didn’t think it compared favorably to our favorite such place, The Mixx in Kansas City.
We next toured Hammond’s Candies, which turned out to be a fun if not comprehensive factory tour. While the tour itself was free, we spent more than $20 in the attached gift shop, but the candy was unique since it was made on site.
The kids got free hats before our factory tour.
After some downtime in our Broomfield hotel, we headed back into the city to meet Austin for dinner at Highland Tap & Burger. The trendy restaurant proved disappointing, with my expensive foie gras-topped burger being incredibly salty.
Perhaps our most interesting and adventurous part of the trip (or ever) was Amanda’s stop at SkyVenture Colorado. There, for around $50, Amanda participated in indoor skydiving, a unique and cool experience that simulates the skydiving experience in a controlled environment. The event entailed a short training class, dressing in the gear and then entering the “tunnel” of sorts to participate with other trainees in one-minute skydiving sessions.
Indoor skydiving!
Noah and Emmie enjoyed watching, and Emmie met a new friend, the eight-month-old daughter of another skydiving participant.
Emmie cried the entire way to Austin’s house, as we drove to pick him up for one final ice cream destination: Little Man Ice Cream, a hip newish ice cream place near Highland Tap & Burger. After a little time at Austin’s house (including Noah watching Austin navigate his remote-controlled car) we drove to the ice cream joint and endured more of Emmie’s screaming.
Totally awesome ice cream.
The line was huge, even after 11 at night, but parking was a breeze and the ice cream product was worth the wait. I had “Space Junkie,” “Pumpkin Chip,” and “Hot Cocoa” ice cream in a waffle cone. Austin had “Hot Cocoa” and “Apple Pie,” while Amanda tried the brownie sundae with butterscotch ice cream and hot fudge. All around excellent ice cream.
We felt a bit irresponsible having two kids out past 11, but the ice cream was worth it. We made it back to the hotel by 12:30 with two sleeping kids in the backseat of the car.