Back to Denver

We spent our quick days at home getting ready to leave again! 

MacKenzie making sure I packed her treats!

Soaking up some last minute pets before she left for Upland

We got to spend some time with MacKenzie, but not much. We did get to eat food at home which tasted so good after a week of restaurant dining.

Two salads to clean out the fridge!

I went to visit my friend Amber who had spinal surgery while we were in Canada. She was ready to get out of the house so we did some quick shopping. I got us new luggage on a major sale! Very exciting!

Our new roller-bags ready for their maiden voyage

My Mom was kind enough to grab MacKenzie on her way out of town Friday afternoon and keep her for a whole week! MacKenzie is lucky that we have such a nice network of dog-sitters. (Ok, we are lucky, too!) We took the evening flight to Denver. It was a longer than normal flight as we had to go around storms, but we made it. We were originally staying at a place with Jackson's hotel points, but upon check-in decided it was just too gross to spend the night in. We went down the road to a hotel we knew was nice and ponied up the cash to stay for the evening. (If you know Jackson, you know this was painful for him.)

We wanted to try at least one new restaurant while we were in town and Yelp spoke highly of the Denver Biscuit Company. NOPE. They served giant, stinky cinnamon rolls and the gravy was spicy. Who wants spicy gravy?! My company was sure handsome, though!

Denver Biscuit Company for breakfast- yuck.

We had a good chuckle when Mom sent an update on how MacKenzie was doing in Upland. She clearly likes the big beds meant for my the two giant schnauzers!

Meanwhile, MacKenzie is right at home in Upland

After our breakfast we headed to Matthew Winters Park. This is a favorite of Jackson's. He used to come here a lot on days when I was studying. He always had MacKenzie with him, though, so we sure missed her on our hike!

Gorgeous day in Denver

Red Rocks Amphitheater 

Petefish.

You could see for miles! 

Pano.

I'd actually never finished the hike here so we did that and went on the new, extended trail. It certainly got the blood pumping. It is so easy to forget how much the altitude impacts you until you get moving! We did about 6 miles total before heading down to Parker to go to my favorite Chinese restaurant.

YESSSSSSSS!

My tastebuds wants to memorize this moment

Wonton soup= pure joy

Our lunch was, as expected, phenomenal. Jackson even sang a song about how I'd fly 1,000 miles just to eat there. ;) We spent the afternoon just kind of hanging out before catching a movie at the Landmark theater. Jackson loves it for the free popcorn and soda. I quit drinking soda so I had stale popcorn and water. Hooray. ;) The theater doesn't look as nice as it did 6 years ago when we lived her, shockingly, but it was still a good place to see the Sully movie. What a great film! We both really enjoyed it.

We took another evening stroll before calling it a night. We've got a big day of hiking ahead of us!