Boy was last night’s sleep much needed. We were able to sleep in until 8!
It’s our last full day here in Denver, so we’re knocking out the last of our to-dos today feeling well rested and rejuvenated.
First stop : Denver Botanic Garden.
I love me a botanical garden, and this one here is huge! They have a cafe so we headed in for some coffee and breakfast before starting our journey. Bacon, egg, and cheese with chive cream cheese? My fave and so good.
There’s so much to see and they have stone paths weaving in and out of the various sections. Madison knows so many plant names and fun facts, meanwhile I’m just here looking at how beautiful everything is. We’ve lucked out again with the weather today, which we’re so grateful for.
We saw some bunnies, squirrels, and even a hummingbird! My first time seeing one in person!
Our next stop is for an iconic souvenir. Some may say, the best one.
Sorry babe & sorry mom, but are you really surprised?
This is my second tattoo souvenir from a NYNP trip. My first one was a few years ago in New Orleans with my friends Sam and Kaitlyn!
Madison and I both read and absolutely love the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J Maas. We’ve read all 3 series (ToG, ACOTAR, CC), but we’re always thinking about ToG #iykyk.
We chose a heart on fire – Fireheart, if you will – to symbolize the main character of the series. Mine went on my ankle, Madison’s on her arm. Now we’re twinsies!
One of the last things we wanted to do is visit the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. There’s an 11 mile roadway you can drive through and observe animals in their natural habitat. We stopped at Cheba Hut on the way there for some lunch after our tattoo artist recommended it to us.
We didn’t have high hopes after going through the Bison area and seeing nothing, but we soon saw a ton of prairie dogs and a coyote. The prairie dogs were SO cute, and we got to listen to them chirp to each other and run around the field. Later down the path we did see some bison from a distance!
We’ve been on the hunt for some reasonably priced souvenirs, and it’s proven to be quite the task. We’ve come to the conclusion that when you’re saying “I remember when t-shirts were $20”, you’re old. So here we are, trying to find some standard shops that can give us a deal. We barely lucked out.
Something Madison and I have been saying this weekend is how cool everyone is. People are so nice and they’re just… so cool. They are vibes. As the kids say, they have good aura? We’ve come across many people who fit this description, as well as some who did not, but overall people are Colorado Cool. We love it.
A quick moment at the airbnb to change and get ready for the night, and we are on our way to the final item on our itinerary – Meow Wolf.
This is an immersive art experience to the fullest. It’s trippy, quirky, weird, awesome, cool, and all the other words. Unique for sure. You take an elevator up to the 4th floor, and you’re able to wonder on floors 3-5. There are 4 dimensions converged into one, and each room has doors that lead to other rooms. A couple in the elevator with us said, “if we get lost…” to which the employee said, “you will’. They were right.
We wandered from room to room always finding something new. You never knew what you’d find through another door, especially if it’s a full person.
Madison and I got scared entering a room at the same time a tall man, Slenderman if you will, was exiting and scared us half to death in the process. I then proceeded to cry laughing again for the next 15 minutes.
Meow Wolf was the definition of Colorado Cool if you ask me. The details, the intricacies, the ideas, the things that make you question how messed up a person was to even come up with this concept. It was all amazing and fantastic art. This is one of my favorite things we’ve done on this trip. It totally makes up for Bright Nights 2 days ago.
We’ve officially wrapped up our final full day in Colorado, and are now ordering Cheba Hut again for dinner cause we’re starving, we loved those sandwiches, and the smash burger place we originally ordered from never got us our food 🙁
*update – shortly after I published this, our smash burgers showed up and 5 minutes after that, so did our sandwiches
I can’t believe the end of the trip is already here. Madison leaves out tomorrow morning, and I leave in the afternoon. We have had so much fun, gotten to do some really awesome things, and laughed a lot. A trip I’ll never forget <3
Stay tuned for our final day tomorrow and the end of the 11th Annual NYNP trip!
