Our Weekend Trip

This weekend Chris and I went to Denver for a little get away. Since the kids weren't staying in one place, it took a bit of planning to make sure they all got situated. Everything worked out wonderfully though, thanks to some wonderful friends.

We landed in Denver around 4:00, raced to baggage claim and then caught the shuttle to the car rental place. We were in such a hurry because we had tickets to a 5:00 showing of an IMAX movie about the Titanic at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. We never made it there because of traffic, us not knowing the area and, to our surprise, the sun started to set at 4:30! So we just went to dinner and checked into the hotel.

Saturday was our only full day in Denver, so we tried to make the most of it and fit in all we could. It turned out we only fit in two things, but they were two fabulous things. When we woke up we pulled back the curtains in our hotel room and discovered we had a WONDERFUL view! Check it out:

After enjoying the view, we headed out to Manitou Springs (an hour south of Denver) to ride the Cog Railway up to the summit of Pike's Peak. It takes about an hour and a half to get up the mountain, then you have 30 minutes on the summit and take another hour and half ride back down. At one point the front of the train was three stories higher than the back end of the train! It was absolutely BREATHTAKING on the summit!! It is just amazing. I don't really have words that could describe it and the pictures do not do it justice!

Here are some pictures of our trip up Pikes Peak:

After our train ride we headed back to Denver. We had tickets to the museum's Titanic Exhibit and I did not want to miss that. We decided to eat an early supper since we skipped lunch and looked for a local steak place along the way. We were trying to stay away from chain restaurants since we can eat at those at home. It was 4:30 (and getting dark) when we stopped at a place in Castle Rock, CO. There was a 45 minute wait!! At 4:30!! So we moved on and decided to eat closer to Denver. We found an Outback and decided we will just go there. We went in and there wasn't any wait at all. We were seated at 4:50 and told the waiter we were in a hurry. We were out of there at 5:20!! That is the fastest dinner I have ever had.

We made it back to Denver in plenty of time, so we stopped by the hotel to freshen up a bit. We headed over there and got there a half an hour early, but they let us in the exhibit anyway. It was fascinating to see how well the artifacts looked after being underwater for decades upon decades! They did a great job with the exhibit (it is a traveling one so I am sure it is the same everywhere). You are given a card with a passengers name and information about them. At the end of the exhibit you look your person up and see if they survived or not. My person was a second class girl and she survived, but Chris' person (a first class male) didn't survive.

The exhibit takes you from the very beginning of the Titanic, when it was just a thought all the way through the construction, sailing and sinking. They had a hallway set up that looked like you were walking down a first class hallway. They had a dining area set up in one room. There was also a room set up like a second class room and another hall like a third class hall with a room set up like a typical third class room. They even had a big block of ice set up for you to touch to feel how cold the water was that night. We even got to touch a piece of the outside of the Titanic. I learned so much from the exhibit that I didn't know before.

By the time we left the museum it was 9:00. We drove around a bit seeing what we could see of Denver at night. We were so tired from our fast paced day we just called it a night early since we wanted to cram in some sightseeing before we had to leave for the airport at 10:30 am.

The next morning we drove by the places we wanted to see, but didn't have time to actually go inside. We went by Molly Brown's house.

We drove by the capital building. They say there is a step there that when you stand on it you are exactly one mile high. We didn't get to do that. We also drove by the US Mint. Even if we had had time we couldn't have toured it because it is closed on the weekends. The last place we drove by before heading to the airport was Coors Field. I can't wait to return to Colorado. Only next time we will plan out more time so we can see more.