Celebrating ten years in Denver

David and I decided to take a quick (Wednesday night - Saturday afternoon) trip to Denver to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary.
Yeah, ten. I can't believe it's been that long. I swear we JUST got married! We aren't the spring chickens we used to be, but we are still madly in love, so we thought a little celebration was in order.

Look at that cutie, all happy to be married. 

We picked Denver because we thought it would be a nice break from the hot weather here in Louisiana, and because there are direct flights from MSY. Ain't nobody got time for layovers.

The trip was short, but we had a great time. We spent the first day at Rocky Mountain National Park, which is the only part of the trip of which we took pictures. There was a brief period of rain, but it was while we were in the car anyway, so for the rest of the day we had some beautiful views of the park.

Snow in July! 

At 12,000+ feet - which feels pretty rough for us, since we live at 32 below sea level! 

The next day we did a tour of the state capitol (one of my favorite things to do when I travel), had brunch, explored some of the shopping areas in downtown Denver, and then had an afternoon beer flight at a brewery. Since Friday was our actual anniversary, we celebrated with a lovely dinner at Rioja, located in the cute Larimer Square. Our dinner was delicious: the entire meal was incredible (and I loved the deep magenta tempranillo we selected to go with it), but my favorite part was the dessert. We split a goat cheese and fennel panna cotta with fresh cherry compote and sorbet. It was incredibly good. The fennel was dried and sugared and added a piquant contrasting crunch to the creamy panna cotta. Just amazing.

And a card from the waitstaff!

We were flying out Saturday, but we had time for the Denver Art Museum and lazy glasses of wine on the hotel patio (leftover from the night before - we couldn't handle a whole bottle!). We stayed at the Art, which David picked because of my enjoyment of Art, and I loved some of the little perks they offered, like complimentary ride service within 2 miles of the hotel (they dropped us off at the rental car place Thursday so we could get a car to drive to the park - quite convenient).

I did go running while I was in Denver, and it was 15 degrees cooler with super low humidity. It felt heavenly, even at altitude (since I live BELOW sea level, going up a mile is tough). Cheeseman park is a mile from our hotel, so we ran there on Friday and Saturday. I always like running in new places, and the park had a pea gravel and dirt path that was an interesting change of surface.

And now I'm back and somehow SO far behind at work. How does that happen? I only took two days off! Crazy! But it was worth it to get away!