My summer schedule has been rather sporadic - so I decided to make use of the one week I would for sure have off from work by roadtripping to Colorado. Although a 3 hour flight would have been much more convenient, the 13+ hour drive from Fort Worth, TX to Denver, CO was a little nicer for the budget.
P.S. I discovered that I LOVE the mountains.
The beginning of the 773 mile journey.
Windmills in Kansas
Finally, Colorado!
DENVER
The Colorado State Capitol was closed on Sunday, so I just explored its surroundings.
The Capitol sits 1 mile above sea level - complete opposite of TX!
The Denver Art Museum was amazing! Super interactive - show your student ID for a discount :)
Playing cowboys & Indians inside the museum.
Pretending to be a painting.
My favorite part of the museum - the fashion studio! Racks of clothes surrounded the runway, & I took advantage of my one chance at modeling.
After lots of walking around downtown Denver, the Great Divide Brewing Co. sounded like a great stop.
The day was wrapped up at a sushi restaurant...
...followed by one last beer at a retro bar in downtown.
Colorado Springs was the last city visited in CO, so a stop at the US Olympic Training Center was a MUST.
Many of the athletes were already in London, but it was still so cool to see where they all work out. Pictured here is the gymnastics practice facility.
At some point in my life, I want to live in Austin. At least, that's what my short 2-day trip led me to believe.
Day one included dinner at Trudy's Tex-Mex & bar-hopping on 6th street. I unfortunately didn't take any pictures this day, so you'll just have to take my word for how amazing it all was! Here is the rest of my trip in photos:
Day 2 started with breakfast at Juan in a Million, so delicious. Order the "Don Juan" & share, it's a huge plate!
After stuffing our faces with "Don Juan," we did some Stand Up Paddling (SUP) on Lake Austin. For a whole hour I was able to float on top of the water under the Texas sun...the most relaxing experience ever! SUP was the best $15 I've spent in a long time.
Ceiling of the Texas Capitol
We spent the majority of the afternoon exploring the Texas Capitol. I took a field trip trip here in 4th grade, but it was great to revisit this historical site.
Giving an important speech
Having an intellectual conversation, clearly.
After the Capitol, we grabbed lunch at Hopdoddy Burger Bar. Buffalo, Turkey, Tuna...Hopdoddy has weird combinations of burgers that somehow end up being super delicious!
We topped of our Hopdoddy's burgers with red velvet cupcakes from Hey Cupcake! along South Congress, AKA SoCo. Trendy, overpriced shops line the street, & we spent about an hour just sifting through the stores. It was fun.
Climbing to Mt. Bonnell Park
We ended the day at Mt. Bonnell Park, which gives you a sweet overview of beautiful Austin.
Austin sunset
Two days in Austin is NOT enough. I hope I can make it back here soon!
I am currently enrolled in a Spanish linguistics course, & my final project for the class involves investigating the melodic curves & phonetics of 5 phrases, all spoken by native speakers from different Spanish-speaking locations.
The questions:
¿Salieron los tres?
Tomamos tapas con cerveza.
¿A qué hora sale el tren?
¿Cómo es que no quieres venir?
Quiero chocolate caliente, pan con mantequilla y jalea.
Here is a video (filmed & edited by my friend Katie, thanks!!) that will serve as part of my research:
I find it so interesting that one language can be spoken so differently, and that geographic, political & social influences have all affected certain accents. Maybe one day I'll be able to travel to all these places represented in the video & be able to hear them for myself!
The combination of five days of salty water, sunshine, 1,200+ pages of recreational reading, & sleep galore was the best remedy to fight the stress bug...I'm healed!
"We shall not cease from exploration. The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started & know the place for the first time." - T.S. Eliot
At the end of day 4, Veronica & I headed over to the 9/11 memorial site. Like I said in my previous post, I lost my ticket but was able to get in because I took a picture of my ticket. haha thank goodness I was able to zoom in on that dang bar code.
Entrance to the site - it's considered a construction site so only so many people are allowed to enter
Map of the pools, located where each tower stood
The pools dedicated to the towers. They are breathtaking. Here's a video I took from the site:
Cool picture courtesy of Veronica
Here's the 9/11 museum - it's made up of pieces that survived the terrorist attack. Almost finished!
While walking to find food Veronica & I ran into a protest on Wall Street, it was getting crazy! Here's a video:
Dinner ended up being at Ruby Tuesdays. We really wanted to find some sushi or random cool place in NY, but after walking around all day our feet led us here. At least it was yummy! We were so tired that, if it were possible, we would have slept & ate at the same time...yeah
Day 5: Veronica & I woke up at 5:30 a.m., checked out of our place, & headed over to the city so we could be on the Today Show! Little did we know we would have a series of unfortunate events that made us get to the show a few hours later than planned...but things ended up being okay in the end :)
The Today Show is filmed in Rockefeller Center - not very many people were there that Tuesday.
Don't worry, we brought our Go Frogs sign to represent TCU! I apologize for looking so rough, it had been a long morning with not much sleep, haha
We were lucky enough to catch Matt Lauer before he ran back into the building! It was exciting, to say the least.
And now for the best part of the day...ANN CURRY!!!! She is my new idol, basically. Ann shook hands with every single person outside & made sure to talk to them for a few minutes as well. She took tons of pictures with everyone too! Veronica & I were the last people to get a picture. She held our hands & told us we were beautiful...my life is complete now.
We then left for the Empire State Building! We got the $22 tickets for the observatory deck, which was level 86. I've never been on a speedier elevator!
View from the observatory deck!
The view was beautiful! Veronica & I did fall asleep while at the Empire State Building - yeah, we were that tired - but I can't think of a cooler place to take a nap!
Lunch consisted of unlimited sushi at some rando place. I would imagine heaven to be very similar to this restaurant...
We subwayed our way around the city...
Off to FAO Schwarz & played on the big piano! We were probably the oldest people on the piano. I think I almost took out a few kids, they were just so tiny!
Then went to the iconic Tiffany & Co store on 5th, where Breakfast at Tiffany's was filmed!
While walking back to the subway we found the Apple store, where notes & apples dedicated to Steve Jobs covered the area. Rest in Peace, Steve Jobs. You were truly legendary.
Veronica & I were lucky enough to catch the last 2 seats on the bus that went from NYC to the Newark airport, where we sadly boarded our 5 p.m. flight. I don't actually remember much of the flight, seeing that I passed out into a coma because I was so tired!
So that's where our trip ended :( but what a great trip it was! Thanks for being such a great travel buddy, Veronica! & thanks to everyone who helped make the break so great.
