Norah had 3 days off school for her Spring Break this year so I decided to take a couple days off of work and decided we would explore the Denver area for a long weekend because we could get cheap flights on Frontier, I had Marriott points for the hotels…and we had never been! We were supposed to leave New Orleans at 7pm, but on our way into the airport they delayed us until 9pm, then again to 9:40pm departure, putting us into Denver around 11:45pm. By the time we got our rental car and got to our hotel, it was about 1am, but we were happy to be here- knowing that when you book the budget airlines, that doesn’t always happen! Ha
Friday morning we slept in a bit longer than I had originally planned because of the flight delay and the fact that within the last week a winter storm had developed and the south area of Denver was unexpectedly going to dealing with up to a foot of snow where I had planned to spend our first day… so my itinerary was getting whittled down quickly.
We started our morning at a Mexican burrito truck. One thing about the western US, breakfast means breakfast burritos and I’m here for it!
Our first site of any significance was Garden of the Gods, a red rocks formation with a drive thru park and hiking trails.
Kegan had warned me, back in his Geology camp days, they came through here… and he said it was skippable… but since we literally had to drive through it to get to the Springs where we were headed, it didn’t make sense to skip.
Right on the edge of Garden of the Gods was the Manitou Cliff Dwellings so we swung in here and spent $45(!!!) to see a recreated cliff dwellings and a museum and gift shop. 100% a skip lol
I learned after that this cliff dwelling was created around 1907 to try to divert tourists to the area… and the stones were actually looted and stolen from a real Ancestral Puebloan site near Cortez. The family that built this still runs it… and apparently its highly controversial, even to this day. I had no idea at the time. But we definitely were like…ok… you ready to go? ha
After that visit, we headed on down to Manitou Springs for a stop at Miramont Castle, a chateau built in 1895 by a french-born catholic priest named Father Jean Baptist Francolon. He was born into a wealthy aristocratic family and immigrated to the US after being recruited to serve as a priest in the Santa Fe area. He spent almost 10 years touring around the southwest to various mission churches and chapels. He had failing health and he decided to move to Manitou Springs area, because it was known for its healing waters and clean air.
Father Francolon incorporated all of the features he liked into one castle. There is English Tudor, Byzantine, Moorish, Romanesque… it really was a cool house…but did sort of seem like a mish-mash of random elements.
The tour started with a fire history museum in the basement… I realized after, I didn’t take many photos because nothing was very photo worthy, really…
This was the priest’s bedroom, the lady at the front desk said this was the most peaceful room or that people feel unsettling spirits here.
There was the Queen’s Tea Parlor in the castle that serves high tea twice daily. But I didn’t know their max capacity would be like 5 people… and they were “all booked” even though there was only 3 tables… so we didn’t have high tea. I have a feeling that was probably for the best. ha Our theory was that you had to have reservations because they likely ordered the food in instead of making it on site and had to know how much to order.
We headed on into town to find an alternate for lunch. The town was a cute artist-type town. Like a Nashville, Indiana. Tons of good independent shops and restaurants.
We were supposed to drive out to the Royal Gorge and Florissant Fossil Beds, but the fossils were starting to get covered in the sticking snow… and I couldn’t imagine driving 2 hours into the mountains to walk across the highest and largest gorge in the US in 29 degree weather and snow was a great idea.
We had also booked the Cave of the Winds 6:30pm night UV special tour… but we had decided over lunch we likely didn’t need to hang around until 8pm then drive an hour on the interstate after dark, so we would just finish up the few in-town items we had earmarked and head back to the city.
First stop was the first of the natural springs- Twin Spring- which was drilled in the 1920s. I saw a local resident walking down with his water bottle to fill up for the day. We sampled it. It was naturally fizzy, so that is super cool to me…but we all agreed it didn’t have a good clean taste to it… it had a metallic funk to it.
The Penny Arcade was our intended destination. I had read that they had tons of vintage and even antique arcade games to play, most of which were still 5 cents, 10 cents or a quarter.
We decided that it was time to get moving…and it was the right call. This was the interstate already.
As I’m driving, I got a call from Colorado Springs… and I’m like, what the heck… it was the Cave of the Winds calling me to tell me they were cancelling our UV tour because of the weather to get everyone home and they were refunding our tour cost. I was like, that’s amazing- we had already ditched you guys and headed back to Denver. ha She laughed and we had $95 back we didn’t anticipate. Win!
We checked in the Denver Marriott West for the next 3 nights.. and after 30 minutes or so, headed out for our escape game reservation that also was moved up to 7:30pm from 9:30pm
We booked this one because it was Star Wars themed. War for the Galaxy. We were in a jail cell and had one hour to escape and find the resistance before we were caught.
After, we couldn’t pick anything that sounded good to anyone….so we sat in the car for a bit trying to find something… and when Kegan mentioned there was a Chuy’s Mexican restaurant nearby, we all said “ooooh, I’d eat Chuy’s!” ha So, we just did chain food. Nothing new and exciting…
We rolled back into the hotel and Norah and I both fell asleep in our clothes. ha Bad mom.
Saturday morning bright and early we headed towards Golden to fit in some suburb town stuff before an afternoon of reservations in Denver.
Breakfast burritos again at Bonfire Burritos. I got the Carne Asada with Green chili sauce and it was the best I had ever had. Kegan and Norah got a chorizo one that was soooo salty, they didn’t finish theirs… but I was happy. ha
Our first stop was the Mines Museum of Earth Science at the Colorado School of Mines- a public university in Colorado founded in 1874.
We drove out a bit to a dinosaur tracksite, but the road was closed. We walked up the hill to the first spot to see some dinosaur bones
With the snow still covering the ground, we decided the almost half- mile walk uphill (in thin air, mind you…. it was hard to just BREATHE haha and when you add elevation..it was a bit of a workout at times just doing a flight of stairs! Someone said it takes about 8 days to acclimate) We all decided that the likelihood of seeing nothing on the ground after walking was going to be disappointing, so we aborted the mission and went back to town.
Next stop- the Denver Museum of Miniatures, Dolls and Toys. Which, I figured would be weird… but it was even weirder than I anticipated. It really was just dollhouses with a couple shelves of other things.
Now, weirdness and all- you cannot discount the skill and craftsmanship that people put into these miniatures. Like the vegetables above- those are purchased whole from a local miniature creator. But they are designed to where you can cut open the bell pepper and find seeds, the cucumber slices, the red cabbage has all of the layers of the real thing. Mind blowing attention to detail. (My fingertip for scale)
We headed on into Denver to a shop that was only open 12-4 Saturday during our trip…so we had to hit this window- called Fifty-Two 80s. A vintage toy shop of 80s and 90s nostalgia.
Now…. the entire purpose of the trip was upon us.
We had been watching TV and found Casa Bonita Mi Amor- a documentary about Trey Parker and Matt Stone -the creators of South Park and Denver natives- buying the defunct Casa Bonita Mexican restaurant and restoring it to the price tag of something like 30 million dollars to try to salvage the history and their childhood magic. Great documentary. Great cause. They say throughout how this was NOT a sound business decision. That the reason they were able to buy this and do this…. was because it was a stupid money decision.
But how refreshing is that… that in this world of business savvy and investment capital and everything having to be for the greatest possible profit and the greatest return for investors that these two filthy rich big kids can just do something from the heart, the right way… and preserve something that didn’t make “business sense” to preserve. Long live Casa Bonita.
For that alone, we had to make the pilgrimage. I booked 3 months prior and there was only late lunch slots available for me to reserve for the entire weekend. But I didn’t mind- I planned my day around a 2pm lunch reservation. ha
Of course, we knew about the lore of Casa Bonita from South Park- which is a staple cartoon of my upbringing. If you haven’t seen it- its one of the best episodes. Kyle gets to have his birthday party with 3 friends at Casa Bonita, Eric Cartman’s favorite place in the whole world- except Kyle isn’t inviting Cartman- because Cartman is a jerk, he instead invites Butters. Cartman schemes to get the spot for the trip by manipulating Kyle and hiding Butters in a bomb shelter for a week so he can go. The scheme unravels as they arrive to the famous fountain in front of Casa Bonita and Cartman does a speed-run to try to fit in all of the fun of Casa Bonita before the police take him into custody. Its comedy genius.
Watch the South Park episode, watch the documentary, visit the place. It’s absolutely worth it for one visit.
I had set a 5:30pm alarm just in case we lost track of time since we had an escape room reservation… and we needed every minute of it… probably could have even spent another 20-30 minutes if we had it to spend. It was an overall great afternoon. It was like the Disneyland of Mexican restaurants. For the price, definitely worth it as a one-time experience. Viva Casa Bonita!
We headed out to Louisville, Colorado (pronounced Loo-is-ville I’m told) to what Reddit told me was the best escape rooms in the Denver area- Rabbit Hole Recreation Services.
We did Frost Base Z – an antarctic base that we had to go try to save a stuck contaminated team, decontaminate ourselves and escape in our pod back to the surface. The theming was pretty good. There was fog and a escape pod that was just a stationary room, but the sounds and light effects made it feel like it was really moving up and down underground or to the surface. We escaped with 14 minutes left. Plenty of time 🙂
We were due to go to dinner at a Sushi place in Louisville before heading back to the hotel, but none of us were hungry at the time, so we got carryout so we could take it back to the hotel and eat it within a couple hours.
Easter Sunday Funday started a bit later with our first plans being at 10:20am at Meow Wolf Denver.
I forgot to take a photo of the outside, but its called Convergence Station- a multi-dimensional train station between Earth and other dimensions, with some sort of weird parallel arc story about missing people and stolen memories.. as all Meow Wolf art installations are a visual fever dream… but also have hidden easter eggs to find, hidden doors, codes, quests, etc.
We spent hours wandering around, seeing every corner of the building… but there really isn’t much to say without experiencing it. I don’t think I’m quite artsy enough to truly “get” Meow Wolf… but it is like nothing else in the world every one we visit.
We decided to get German food for a late lunch at Rhein Haus downtown right near Mile High Stadium.
Our afternoon was uneventful… we were debating going to the Selfie Museum… or the Museum of Illusions…but eventually we all agreed to just go back to the hotel for a 3 hour nap before escape room fun in the evening. Norah and I did full on pajamas in bed and were zonked out. Kegan had to wake us up to go out. ha We would have been down for the night, I think.
Conundrum games was our destination tonight- for the Hollywood Mystery room- a Dick Tracy style 1940’s missing starlet we had to help the detective find the suspect and where he had taken the star- Holly Woods.
Funny story- We got a card that was coded in a cypher called “pigsty”. The room malfunctioned, and a drawer was supposed to open that gave us a decoder ring to decode the message… but have no fear… Norah just happened to know how to decode pigsty IN HER BRAIN… so the game master didn’t even notice that the drawer didn’t open for us. So, even with a malfunctioning game, we managed to get the record for the room. Hence Norah’s “It was all me” sign. It really was. ha
We weren’t really wanting a full dinner after German lunch- so we decided to just get ice cream.. and found this local chain of frozen custard called Goodtimes. It was good enough for a late night teat.
Monday morning was our last day. We packed up and checked out of our hotel and headed into the downtown area, we had a few options for breakfast to select between, but everyone agreed just coffee and pastries sounded best so we drove to Aurora to Paris Baguette.
After breakfast we fought our way directly downtown on a Monday morning and searched for parking for a bit to go into the Denver mint. When we arrived we were still over 45 minutes away from a tour start, so we decided to just hit the gift shop and look for any sets or coins for the collection.
The History Colorado Center was a very well done museum. Lots of state history and memorabilia, lots about mining culture and settlement…but didn’t shy away from some of the darker parts of Colorado history like the Salt Creek Massacre, the Chinatown riot in downtown Denver, KKK prevalence in the state, Japanese internment camps, segregated ski towns…. I think those things are important to ensure they tell the stories of EVERYONE in the state… and I think this did a great job all around.
To kill an hour or so until we headed to the airport, we decided we could eat so we went to a restaurant I had bookmarked called MAKfam- a modern Chinese.
To round out our trip, we took a drive through the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Preserve to check out some wildlife. Its an 8 mile loop through a nature preserve… we saw prairie dogs, deer, buffalo, ducks, geese, tons of birds- even a hawk.
After that it was the craziness of rental car return, shuttle, security, gate changes, etc… but a fairly empty direct flight back to New Orleans on Southwest. Norah decided to wear her retro Casa Bonita shirt home today that she picked up in the gift shop…so I’d say the goal of creating childhood memories at Casa Bonita was a success!
Next trip is New York City->London->Ireland for 8 days at the end of May. See you then!
