Day 1: Exploring Denver

- Once landing at DIA, we hopped in the rental car and drove to the Snooze A.M. Eatery. We went to the Colorado Blvd location, which was about a 40 minute drive from DIA. Breakfast here was unbelievable. The Snooze Classic was amazing (I highly recommend!), the coffee really hit the spot, and their service was exceptional! I've never had such thick-cut bacon before, and the berry jam was delicious on my gluten free toast.

- Visit the Denver Botanic Gardens and take a stroll through the beautiful and meticulously maintained land. The tulips were in full bloom in May and it was stunning! This was the perfect stop after a filling breakfast. It really helped us wake up, acclimate and get our legs moving after our flight.

- Take a trip to a local grocery store to stock up on some easy meal-prep items to last the week (our go-to is super simple: bread, bananas and peanut butter!) We stopped at Trader Joe’s and I purchased their store brand gluten free cinnamon raisin bread which was tasty. Peanut butter and banana sandwiches for the win!

- Check into Hotel/BnB and rest up for a fun evening out of the town.

- Drive to downtown Denver (we found ample meter parking near 16th Street Mall for less than $5). Take a stroll north-west toward Larimer Square (we used the GPS on our phones to navigate downtown Denver and it proved useful!) On this walk, you’ll find so many stores and restaurants. We had fun window shopping and taking in our surroundings!

- Head north-east from Larimer Square to Union Station. This was one of our favorite stops during our time downtown! It was architecturally beautiful and had several restaurants and bars inside, as well as a bookstore!

- We had dinner at Ultreia in Union Station which was a Tapas Bar and had amazing cuisine. We arrived during happy hour so we had buy one-get one Sangrias (woo!) paired with our tapas choices: goat cheese stuffed dates, crispy eggplant (not gluten free, sadly), and cedar plank mushrooms. Surprisingly, we were full after this, though they have plenty more on the menu to make your mouth water!

- After dinner we popped into the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Union Station and had fun browsing their titles. Tim even purchased a guide on how to brew your own beer (more details coming soon!)

- After further downtown explorations, we decided to hop back into the rental car and seek out some dessert! I found the Little Man Ice Cream to be a popular destination on Pinterest so I knew there must be something good here. We showed up and there was hardly any parking (not bad though, as we could use the walk). The line for the ice cream went quick and soon enough we had delicious heaping scoops of homemade ice cream at our fingertips.

- I ordered the coconut almond fudge with coconut toppings in a dish and Tim had the chocolate cheesecake brownie ice cream with rainbow sprinkles in a waffle cone! The price was great, the service was wonderful and the ice cream was to-die-for! Little Man Ice Cream had plenty of seating, so we chose a two-seater rocker and happily ate our ice cream. There was some cool wall art, as well as ample people watching and so many cute dogs waiting for their own scoop of ice cream!