Colorado Day 1

June 18, 2015 (Thursday)

Girls weekend vacay! This adventure took us to Colorado and Utah. We had the 6AM flight out of Detroit to Denver. It was my first experience with Frontier Airlines. The baggage check-in line was short and overall we had a great flight in both directions. We rented a car through Hertz, this was also a first for me. I am not sure if all locations have the same type of check-in process, but I did not really care for it. The check-in was relatively fast, but it was weird to have to talk to the agent through a phone and computer screen. Returning the car was odder yet. No one was there to direct you where to park the car, so we just put it in a line and then had to go inside the building and try to figure out where to go to report the mileage, time and amount of gas in the car. The shuttles were very quick, so that was a positive.

Petrified Wood that is trying to be preserved

The main purpose of the trip was for my friend Sarah to go to one of her old college friends’ wedding in Glenwood Springs.

The first stop for our trip was the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument ($3/person or free with the NPS pass), which was near Colorado Springs. Arriving near 11AM, we were able to join a ranger guided hike along the Petrified Forest Trail. The hike was about an hour long and was easy. There were some really neat flora, insect, butterfly fossils on display. There was a video available but we did not watch it. There is also a Fossil Learning Lab set up in a Yurt Tent – unfortunately it was not open during our visit.

A view from Florissant Fossil Beds NM

After the park were able to find a place somewhat close by for lunch – Lake George Pizza. The pizza was super good, and the potato skins were pretty good also.

With fully tummies, we headed to the Holiday Inn Express in Glenwood Springs. The drive was quite lovely. We enjoyed beautiful mountain and river views.  About half way thru our drive, we stopped at the Brown Burro for ice cream. The ice cream was just okay, I had strawberry. The hotel was nice also, clean and pretty décor.  The hotel was just a short walk to the downtown area.

 Glenwood Canyon Brew Pub was our dinner choice for the evening. They had quite a few beer options – Pam and Sarah, my travel companions, both enjoyed a sampler flight. Over all the food was not that great. The salad was good, but the burger not the best.