Day 2: Nature Parks

Since it’s Thanksgiving Day today, most of museums, restaurants and shops are closed, thankfully, not the National Parks!

Our breakfast was unusual: the restaurant we were trying to go was closed but failed to inform the Internet , so we arrived there facing the closed doors. Steve wanted to go to IHOP, I said absolutely not! I am not coming to a different city to eat at IHOP! After a quick search on Google map, I was was happy to discover a Mideastern restaurant called Jerusalem (voted as one of the best Mideastern restaurants in Denver, a business operated by the same family for the last 35 years!) was just down the block. Beef Shawarma and lamb Gyros were very tasty breakfast food! LOL!

Red Rock Park is only about 30 minuets away from Denver, and the dramatic red rock formations were visible to us from miles away due to their sizes. The Red Rock Amphitheatre locates at the center of this park is actually a famous concert venue. We loved the fact that 2 huge rock formations are its backdrop! The 3 mile hiking in the park was very lovely too.

After some quick snacks in the car, we headed to Colorado Springs, which is only 1 hour away.

Once again, we were greeted by even more dramatic rock formations from far away as we entering The Garden of Gods National Park.

The main difference between these 2 parks is that Garden of Gods allows you to climb the rocks. Check out the amazing pictures of a couple scaling a vertical rock called Cathedral Pillar. They climbed higher than the birds!

Evan loved, loved doing some free climbing as well. Don’t worry, he was never in mortal danger... although I was a bit regretting not to bring any bandaids.

Few restaurants opened today, fortunately I’ve done my research weeks ago and booked a wonderful restaurant called Till Kitchen (voted as one of the best restaurants in Colorado Springs 3 years in the row). The restaurant indeed delivered some wonderful dishes. Evan and Steve inhaled their steak and pork chop dishes, my smoke trout salad was just ok though.

Spending a Thanksgiving Day in the National parks is a great idea!Read more