Mile High Comics

 Good morning ya'll. Today is all about our trip to Mile High Comics!! Ahnah was practically bouncing off the walls to visit this shop, as Brad had already had her drooling from all the tales from when he had visited before. The outside alone is enough to get Marvel and D.C. Comics fans excited. Located in Denver but hidden away in an industrial area, this is how they direct people to where they are. Worked for us!

To be completely honest, this building is so big it's easy  to get overwhelmed at first!! But once you start looking around, time goes by quickly! From tabletop games, Pokémon cards, anime, manga, comic books, replicas, toys....the list goes on and on...if it exists and you're nerdy/geeky heart wants it, they probably have it! 

If you look closely at the photo above, Thanos' Gauntlet is autographed by everyone on the set...including the man himself, Stan Lee! And this was just a small selection of the memorabilia and collectibles that they had. The replicas pictured below were stunning in their detail, it's a good thing we don't have anywhere to put them or we may have ended up with an entire collection of the LOTR weaponry. 😂

After spending about 3 hours in the store, we made our final choices on purchases. Several books for Ahnah to read on the flight home and Brad added to his Grimm's Fairytale comic book collection. A couple of cool notes about this store though before we conclude: They support local artists by selling their products, which we LOVE to see. Also, they used to be extremely involved in the yearly San Diego's Comic Con,  just a little bit of history!

Mile High Comics=⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Excellent selection, fairly reasonable pricing, very unique selection of goods! Oh and pictured below, a photo of Gotham's biggest hero. And a killer photo of my hero too. (Not the one wearing a mask.) 

Rasta Pasta

Good Saturday morning to you all, this post is going to talk about a really cool and extremely different restaurant we stopped at for dinner in Colorado Springs, CO before heading home for the night. But before we get to the good stuff let us not fail to mention that Colorado Springs has a really cool "vibe" to it. It feels very laid back. Very chill. 

I mean how many times in your life are you ever going to have to do a double take because you just saw Batman? 😮 There's a guy that owns his own Batmobile and drives around dressed up!! It was so cool!

On to the good stuff. We visited this funky little place called Rasta Pasta. It's this awesome restaurant that has an Italian-Jamaican fusion theme. Which at first takes you aback but the more you think on it the more you realize....it works!! Curry + pasta? Our minds took a minute to absorb this concept but then we wholeheartedly embraced it! Also, the decor in this place immediately takes you to a beachy kind of feeling so you have to relax.  

We are so disappointed that we didn't think to take any food pics here.😟 Brad was having a little bit of issues from a slight case of altitude sickness and wasn't starving so he went for an appetizer but Ahnah (being a lover of curry of course.) dove right in to the pasta.

Brad chose the dipping bread appetizer with the rose sauce and oh my gosh ya'll... He ended up being a sweetie and sharing because that sauce was so good we are still trying to find a recipe.

Ahnah went with "The Natural Mystic" which includes their Jerk chicken with a pineapple curry sauce in penne pasta. Our awesome server suggested a touch of alfredo sauce added to it and it was so good it just melted in your mouth. It was divine and so unique!!!! 

 Rasta Pasta=⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 

The service was great with great suggestions, the atmosphere was awesome and fun and the food was supreme. Definitely stop in and check it out if you ever get a chance...and maybe say hello to the parrot.

Garden of the Gods

   As we continue along with our journey through Colorado a bit, we find ourselves at Garden of the Gods located in Colorado Springs, CO. As we are true crime fans and follow the career of Det. Joe Kenda, we found it necessary to discover the town of Colorado Springs which brought us here. Side note=hope you all didn't mind the sneaky shout out to our world of true crime. 😉

  Words will be hard to describe the beauty that we took in while visiting this park. It is free to just show up and explore and they have all kinds of hiking trails throughout if you decide to take in some exercise. If you would rather just drive around and explore, it will take you about a half an hour to do so, depending on how much traffic is involved as it is a busy place. We later on discovered that you can take guided jeep rides around the park as well if you decide to. The giant natural rock formations are just plain breath taking and seem as though they are not even of this world. Certain horizon shots would glare upon the giant stones, perhaps even while you catch a rock climber scaling up the mountain. If that is not a good enough reason to get you to visit, they have one of the absolute best gift shops that we encountered upon our trip. It was equipped with every kind of Colorado souvenir you could think of, a fudge station, lots of tshirts and clothes, and even a Native American crafts area. 

Final Thoughts: Simply put...this is a MUST see!!!

Fairplay, CO

 Howdy, folks!

  Hope you all have not gotten bored with our Colorado adventures just yet...we have just a few more to share before we move on with our posts. This adventure takes us to Fairplay, CO.

  Fairplay is a smaller town in which you can feel the vibe of the past mining days before. The drive to our destination was absolutely spectacular with mountains, pastures with livestock, and so forth but the town itself was a rather quick visit. Now, for those of us that are not aware, Fairplay is widely known for the hit animated show South Park which has been around for a long time. It has a few small restaurants and some decent souvenir/gift shops but there were a few stores that either were plainly closed or kept odd hours. Some of the locals were very friendly and others gave us the feeling that we were being watched closely while we browsed around. In 1 of those gift stores, we stepped down into an area to look at some South Park memorabilia and were quickly told that we are suppose to pay a fee to be in that area...that gesture pretty much wrapped up our Fairplay trip. Please allow us to add a picture below of the famous lake that is featured in the South Park television show...we spotted anglers doing some trout fishing at the time...

Final Thoughts: If you are a fan of the South Park show, we do recommend that you visit Fairplay at least once and catch your own vibe from it; if not, you may want to keep cruising to your next adventure. 

Doc Holliday's Grave at Glenwood Springs

 "I'm your Huckleberry", if you don't know what movie this quote is from, we may not be friends. Just kidding...BUT in all seriousness, while we knew about Doc Holliday, the movie, "Tombstone" brought him as well as the Earp brothers to life in a whole other way for most folks. Or so it  seems. This stop in Glenwood Springs, and the trip through Glenwood Canyon was one of Ahnah's favorite parts. She, as well as Brad have a deep love for Doc Holliday and knowing he was buried here, we had to detour to visit and pay our respects to the man himself. 

To be completely honest, there were lots of photos taken on the trip through the gorge, but they do NOT do it justice. You simply cannot capture the depth of God's handiwork in pictures. You are at the bottom of the canyon itself and at times you are driving past the Colorado River. It was one of the most awe inspiring things Ahnah has ever seen. (Probably why there weren't too many great pictures....put the phone down and enjoy the ride sometimes right?)

We actually spent the night at a hotel and woke up bright and early to hit the trail (literally) to Doc Hollywood's grave at the historic Linwood Cemetary. We spent some time actually reading the extremely informative plaque at the beginning of the trailhead. 

 They do give a warning at the beginning of the path that the trail is a half mile hike. Which we were thinking, ok, what's the big deal? We walk that allllll the time. We got this.....

Oh how mistaken we were!!!! The distance was not an issue, it was the altitude and uphill climb that took it's toll. I mean, there are warnings all over the path to not leave food and keep dogs on their leashes because of the possibility of BEARS!! This definitely kept us very aware of our surroundings. To show you how high we actually were, check this out!

Yes, yes that's a baseball diamond. We were way up there. Now, about halfway through the uphill battle, Brad had those of us around him laughing so hard because he stopped, looked at us and loudly proclaimed, "Doc Holliday was a jerk for having people carry him all the way up here to be buried." (Disclaimer: This has been tastefully edited to not offend our readers in anyway. 😂)

Now, in all seriousness. The following photo explains in a little more depth that it is actually a "Potter's Field" so our hero may be buried in a different location than the actual memorial headstone is at. 

While a great many of the famous quotes from the iconic movie were running through our heads, it was a very solemn moment and one that will not likely be forgotten for a great many years. And yes, while this is a review blog, there will be no final thoughts or 5-star reviews on the final resting place of  a great man who was a better friend to Wyatt Earp than most of us will ever have the experience of understanding in this life. 

"There's no normal life, Wyatt. It's just life. Get on with it." 

Farewell until the next tale our friends. 

Peppino's

 Friends,

  This adventure will take us to another pizza parlor in Frisco, CO: Peppino's. We hold Frisco dear to our hearts because it is a nice, cozy town cut out of the beautiful mountains surrounding it. They are known for a skiing destination, we saw boats enjoying the marina, and most of the shopping spots at least seem to be privately owned, not big chains. 

  Peppino's is a smaller restaurant but cozy and with a nice staff. They have board games available to play while you wait on your meal and they do not just offer pizza. However, being big pizza fans, we had to try it out and see for ourselves. We ordered the: Jimmy The Greek. This pizza is basically a version of a Mediterranean/Greek pizza and was very delicious. It was a big pizza and we got to carry some back to the home base to enjoy later. 

Final Thoughts: We loved spending time in Frisco and would highly recommend trying out Peppino's if you find yourself in that area. Our only regret is we did not have enough time to come back and try more on the menu. 

Estes Park

 Welcome to another addition of our Colorado blog series. We are very excited to be bringing you to the beautiful Estes Park. 

 

  With elevations over 7,000 feet, this place has a lot of beauty to offer high up on those mountains. Entering into Estes Park, we stopped to take a picture(ABOVE) and fed the chipmunks as well as spotted a unique blue bird that we could not identify. We did have a little bit of a time frame to be in as we found it important to take a tour of the Stanley Hotel. For those of us that do not know the background of this hotel, it is the place that inspired Stephen King to write his novel The Shining back in the 1970s. Even if you are not a horror fan like we are, the hotel still has a lot of fun history to know about and is worth seeing at least once. Skeptic or enthusiast, there are definitely some strange vibes going on in this place as far as the paranormal goes and...we may have actually caught something on our camera while we were there. 

  As we do not wish to give the Stanley Hotel all of the credit, let us move on to the shopping strip that we explored after our tour. Not only did the strip have nice shops to go in, the outdoor scenery was beautiful as well. We had a nice day exploring a few different souvenir shops, clothing boutiques, taffy making, and a responsible lunch of ice cream as we strolled the strip and dipped our toes into the small river running straight through the town. When it came time for us to carry on to another adventure and leave out of Estes Park, our exit was accompanied by a family herd of elk disrupting traffic...which we did not mind at all. 

Final Thoughts: We gave this blog post a good try at a review and we probably still did not include every single thing we wanted to while being in Estes Park. Meaning, the beauty is stunning and is a must see for anyone looking to explore Colorado. We may even be brave enough to say that this is 1 of our favorite spots in Colorado. 

Cafe Paprika

 Friends,

   Welcome back to another addition of our Colorado trip. Today we will be focusing on a rather unique restaurant by the name of Cafe Paprika located in Aurora, CO. 

  This establishment is a smaller but cozy place to enjoy a meal. The owner will serve you himself and is very friendly as he will carry on a conversation and get to know you a little. They cater to mostly a Greek/African cuisine and the fresh food is well worth the wait. As you are waiting, might as well sit back and enjoy some of the tasty mint tea that they will pour for you at your table. 

  Ahnah enjoyed: Falafel while Brad enjoyed: Ziti Chicken. Both of these dishes were superb in flavor and we even carried back some to the home base to enjoy later. 

Final Thoughts: If you are in the mood to try something a little different than the usual, please try this place out. They have our full support and we plan on going back again when we are in the area. 

Safeway

 Good morning ladies and gentlemen, we are finally done with Downtown Denver and the many exciting places we explored whilst on our quest for adventure. Now on to what some, possibly most, will not find that exciting-the grocery store! Woohoo!! Well....its a "Woohoo" for Ahnah. Having been a couponer (at times EXTREME couponer) and a thrifty shopper most of her adult life, she was chomping at the bits to see what odds and ends differed from the South. While we did visit two grocery chains on our trip, this post will be about Safeway.

We visited the location in Thornton, CO as it was close to where we were staying. We did decide to cook dinner a few nights while we were there, and when you are in Colorado you absolutely must stay hydrated!! We went through several cases of water while we were visiting. So, this was the perfect opportunity to try out grocery shopping in another state. 

Like most of the larger stores these days they did have a cafe area with a Starbucks which was visited for a caffeine fix of course. The first barista wasn't that great but the second one made up for it. Actually, we would have purchased some of their cute souvenir mugs if there had been more luggage space. 😂

The location we went to was very clean, organized, and well stocked. We are very picky about our groceries and both noted that the store even smelled clean. Which is not always the case in chain stores. Having been told over and over that there is a major difference in price point between home and Colorado, Ahnah was pleasantly surprised to see that everything was only a few cents more. Depending on what you go for that is! She's more of a generic shopper with the exception of a few things. In her mind she had built it up that it was going to be a $1-$2 difference on everything so it was a sigh of relief to see it wasn't that much of a difference. Too bad the same cannot be said about gas prices. 😬

The only complaint to be had was that no matter what time of day we stopped in, there was always a wait. They either didn't have the self-checkout lanes open or not enough cashiers. But to be fair, that's every store, in every city these days it seems. Sigh...

Safeway=⭐⭐⭐⭐ Simply because a manager can always jump on a register, or start bagging or something just to get your paying customers out quickly. Stay tuned ya'll!! We have some super exciting reviews coming up soon! Shall I tease with one word?? Is anyone familiar with the word Estes? 🤔

Appaloosa Grill

 Friends,

  Welcome to our final entry for downtown Denver and the 16th Street Mall district. Thank you so much for hanging in there with us as we will begin focusing on other parts of Colorado as well as other assorted reviews coming up.

  This adventure brings us to Appaloosa Grill. This restaurant was in a smaller, cozy corner that we passed by a few times before we made time to visit. We were there in the middle of the day and in the middle of the week so we can not fairly comment on the night life and the live music that was advertised. We can only comment on the quality of food and service that we experienced which we will now do in detail. 

  Starting off, we noticed a different style of tipping system that we did not agree with at all. If we remember correctly, they automatically add 20% to the bill which is shared amongst employees. We do not agree with this because...what if the service is not good and you are forced to tip anyway??? Please keep in mind, this is coming from a couple that is known to double a bill if the service is exceptional. We can assure you, this service was far from exceptional. 

  Our host/waiter seemed to be the manager or person in charge at the time, we could not tell. He stayed occupied with different things around the restaurant/bar and when he did decide to carry on a dialogue with us, he seemed a little condescending which is uncalled for when you have paying customers...especially ones that do blogs! Ahnah had the Tempura Avocado Chicken Burger:this should have been a rather easy chicken burger to accomplish but instead, for $15, we got no real flavor behind it as well as burnt and dried out chicken. Brad had the Flat Top Elk Burger:this was the best part of the whole visit as it turned out to be quite a yummy burger with excellent ingredients.

Final Thoughts: This establishment needs to make some adjustments or they will lose some money, if they haven't already. Unless we are in the area and have an appetite for a good elk burger that we can't get somewhere else, we will NOT be going back.