Back in Denver

We woke up a little more slowly today than we'd planned, but we were still up & out early for a Sunday morning. We went to Winona's, one of Lacey's favorite restaurants in Steamboat Springs. I had a scramble that had crab, bacon, red peppers and onions with hollandaise sauce that tasted really good at the time but wanted to cause issues later. Fortunately, nothing bad happened, but my stomach was a little sensitive.

After breakfast, we went back to the hotel and relaxed for just a little while, because we needed to check out. We actually found we were running a little late, so we got our checkout time pushed back a little.

We decided that we wanted to be a little more active, so we drove to the Rocky Mountain National Park. We went to the information center and asked the woman there advice about which trail to take. We obviously needed something that wasn't too strenuous for me, but we didn't want something completely flat, either. The woman told us of her favorite one, which, happily, we could access from somewhere that seemed a bit outside of the actual park, so we didn't have to pay an admission fee. Yay!

The trail was absolutely beautiful. Lots of trees, a waterfall, a meadow -- and definitely not flat. There were some areas that were fairly steep for me, although Lacey, being a very experienced hiker, didn't seem to be particularly affected by it. I've got to say, she was extremely patient and encouraging redgarding my lack of hiking experience. The air up there was definitely thin, and I was surprised at how winded I got when I knew I had more endurance than that. We ended up walking a total of 2.54 miles. (Lacey has a nifty GPS thing she wears on her wrist that keeps track of such things.)

After hiking, it was time to head back to Denver. We drove a very scenic mountain route, through some more amazing scenery and some cute little mountain towns -- exactly what I think of when I say "mountain town". In Lacey's amazing hotel coupon book, we found one for a Hampton Inn and headed there. This is by far the nicest hotel we've been in & are considering actually staying for two nights in the same place. We were too tired and giddy to actually go out for dinner, so we went to Noodles & Company and picked up food to bring back to the hotel room. And, I finally found Fresca, which I'd been looking for at every store we've stopped at so far. And, tonight, we're just hanging out in the hotel, relaxing and blogging.