Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory

 Ok guys, trying to wrap up our 16th Street Mall adventure with a few last posts that we cannot neglect to mention, one of those being the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. After walking past and smelling the enticing aromas that floated out of their several locations we passed by....Ahnah couldn't take it anymore and stopped in. 

Think of a smaller scale Willy Wonka's and you would be close to what you experience when you walk in the door, (minus the Oompa-Loompa's of course.) there is literally candy everywhere. To be honest, it's actually overwhelming to the senses. It was almost a little stressful! Too many options, which isn't a bad thing when it comes to chocolate. Now, Ahnah will tell you she isn't a huge chocolate person, which is true....unless there is also fruit involved. Her eyes immediately fell upon the lemon and orange rind dipped in dark chocolate and it was over. Purchases were being made. Brad......Brad on the other hand is a recovering chocoholic. We say recovering since he has cutback due to an increase of kidney stones. Do we still keep chocolate on hand? Of course! It's just not eaten at the pace it used to be around here. 😢

While the shop itself was VERY nice...the employee...not so much. She had seemed friendly enough to the previous customer but seemed very rushed with us. She was polite but not what I would call "friendly". In fact, we would have purchased a few more items if she hadn't made Ahnah feel like she didn't have enough time. We're willing to chalk it up to the fact that we went slightly after they had opened and she did have some decadent delights to whip up before they got busy. 

We purchased a small amount of fudge, as well as an assortment of truffles. Ahnah wanted to purchase her chocolate covered peels and the cashier said she would throw some in for free as we spent a pretty penny....BUT we don't consider one being thrown in the box as "some". Oh well, chalk one up for experience. 

Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory= ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The chocolate was very high quality and you could tell it was made fresh in house and not shipped in. Brad really liked the Bailey's Irish Cream truffle he had as well as the fudge. Honestly, every truffle we bought was excellent. The reason they are being given 4 stars is the customer service. I don't think we expect too much but a little niceness goes a long way for us. 

Sock Em' Sock Emporium

 Friends,

  Welcome back as we get ready to wrap up our journey in downtown Denver. We do hope we have not bored you by now with focusing on the downtown Denver part of Colorado so much, there was just a lot to explore there. Our promises to you that we are getting ready to explore much more soon.  

  As for now, allow us to focus on an establishment by the name of: Sock Em' Sock Emporium located in the 16th Street Mall district. Being fair, Ahnah is not much of a sock girl but Brad had already started wearing "weird socks"(Pink Floyd socks to be exact) before we ever got on the plane headed to Colorado. So with that being said, once we stumbled across this store, it was as if the rays of light shined down from Heaven upon this store for Brad and a new addiction was about to be born. It also did not help matters any that Brad's birthday was approaching soon so Ahnah was a total sweetheart and indulged with unique socks as a birthday wish. 

  There was only one employee and we had the store to ourselves at that particular time. The young gentleman was very friendly and helpful; he engaged in intelligent dialogue with us and made us feel like real people, not just another customer. He also made sure we were aware of the certain sales going on and where the "dirty socks" were located out of plain site from customers that may get offended. Needless to say, this place got our business and we took great advantage of the sales going on with Brad's sock drawer now overflowing. To give a couple of examples of some favorites purchased: "Live your life as if they will ban your book" and "The universe is made up of protons, neutrons, electrons and morons". 

Final Thoughts: Another rarity=this establishment gets 100% good reviews from us. Staff is friendly and the prices are right for the quality of product. This place is a MUST for "weird sock" lovers. 

Brooklyn's Finest Pizza

   Howdy, friends! We have a couple of more mentions on downtown Denver, if ya'll care to explore with us some more. We have so many wonderful things to share with you that we hope you will be forgiving if we get a couple of things out of order. We find it exciting to carry you along with our journeys, if you will allow us. 

  So, while walking the streets of downtown Denver, got to have something to eat with all those footsteps, right? A little background, we LOVE pizza! Blame it all on our love for Italian food(amongst other cuisines, of course) or the fact that we both grew up watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, pizza is not something we go without for very long. It is true that we have leaned towards the Chicago style pizza many times but, we really are not too picky when it comes to a nice slice of pie. 

  This brings our journey to Brooklyn's Finest Pizza. Although this means more of the New York style pizza, these guys have a wide variety of dishes to choose from. Unfortunately, Brad could not pass up the variety of single slices to choose from so much that he stopped at this establishment 3 times before leaving Colorado...addiction, perhaps? However, Ahnah decided to be more open to try different dishes and really enjoyed the Gabilla's Knish. For those of us that are curious...this dish is a seasoned mashed potato with some good spicy brown mustard on it. 

  This place stayed busy and was a rather small establishment so we chose to eat out on the patio. The food was yummy and the staff was very friendly. The employees seemed to enjoy working there and were laid back but, maybe a little too laid back. Being that we consider ourselves friendly and laid back, we welcome this behavior but this will bring us to the 1 negative thing to comment about on this restaurant: employees were cursing in front of customers. Now, we curse ourselves at times but the problem is children were in and out of here and they do not need to be hearing that. We have both worked in jobs where we are expected to be very professional and represent our companies in front of clients so we expect the same when visiting other establishments...profanity in front of customers is not a professional practice. 

Final Thoughts: If you are a pizza/Italian fan, please try this place out and get ready for some great food and friendly service...just try to tune your ears out of things you hear in case the staff is a little too laid back again. We definitely plan to go back on our next visit to Denver. 

Regional Transportation District

  As promised, we are now going to take a slight detour from our adventures in downtown Denver to give praise to the transportation process of maneuvering around Colorado. We explained earlier on that it was our first time on an airplane together as well as our first time in Colorado together. Well, it was our first time on a transportation train of this caliber together to add to it.

  Regional Transportation District, commonly known as R.T.D., was our ticket to exploring downtown Denver. Being that our guides had obligations to take care of some of the time that we were in Colorado, we needed a way to move around. Our home base was located in Thornton which was walking distance from 1 of the many train stations available so this made it a breeze for us. 

  R.T.D. is a well organized and established system in which we have nothing negative to say about. The train was ALWAYS on time for when it said it would be from our experience and the conductors were very friendly, helpful, and paid close attention to passengers getting on and off of the train. The fare was, if we remember correctly, $10 per day which is a fair price considering the gas it would have taken to move around in an automobile. Plus, they do run specials for different things and lots of people use this as their transportation back and forth to work as we noticed. 

  As we waited in Thornton to be picked up, we enjoyed views of prairie dogs popping up and down out of their burrows...something we do not see in the South unless at a zoo. Along the ride, there were several different stops before we got to downtown Denver in which we were able to have different views of the state of Colorado. The views of the mountains along the way were astonishing and if either 1 of us were illustrating artists with a sketchpad and pen, we could be selling paintings of it by now. Union Station-Denver was the end of the line for us and was so beautiful that it looked like something out of the movies. In addition, you can take the train from Union Station to Denver airport which is rather convenient if need be. 

Final Thoughts: Being that we try hard to remain unbiased and as fair as possible with our reviews, rarely are we able to give an establishment or product a 100% positive review...R.T.D. will be the exception. If you are ever in a position to where you need to use public transportation in Colorado, please give R.T.D. a chance and see for yourself. 

16th Street Mall

 The following day we had to go it alone as our amazing tour guides had to return to work until the following weekend. So we planned to explore the 16th Street Mall. We had the train schedule,(more to come on the train later in the week!) a few directions, digital guidance from afar thanks to one of our tech guru tour guides, comfy shoes and a spirit of adventure. So off we went!

Upon our arrival, it was a little bit overwhelming. Memphis is big but Denver is HUGE, or so it felt. Upon exiting the station we looked around for a few blocks and ended up going left. After walking a few more blocks it became necessary to find a bathroom. Interesting note about Downtown Denver, there are no easily accessible public bathrooms. You have to be a customer and have a code in the malls and be a paying customer in other places. Heck, the Target doesn't even have a public one. So the search began.

Now we feel the need to mention that Ahnah is a coffee addict. Might not want to engage her in serious conversation until after a cup of God's gift to mankind. Or two. At this point she hadn't had any...at all...and so whipping out her phone she decided to Google the nearest coffee shop. Great idea, except that having no familiarity at all with the area, we were led further away from where we wanted to go. The closest one was a few blocks down and as we made our way there we did pass one site of interest. Coors Field, now neither of us are baseball fans but it was still a very cool stadium to behold. Knowing now what we didn't know then would have made us realize that we were heading in the wrong direction. Oops.

Shortly after we passed the stadium we found the coffee shop, with the Hallelujah chorus ringing in our heads we went to walk up the stairs just to discover......it wasn't open yet!!!! 😭

Nearing panic mode at this point, we ventured on to the next spot on the map with prayers in our hearts that it was open. Thankfully it was! 

Snooze's A.M. Eatery was our lifesaver!! Taking care of the call of nature and seating ourselves at the bar, the barista/bartender assisted us in ordering our drinks. At that point in time, Ahnah was in zombie mode and ordered a mocha espresso, while a custom made chai tea latte was what Brad was after. Ahnah loved her drink, almost ordering another to go-but decided it was in her best interest to not have her heart explode. Brad was highly impressed with his beverage, actually saying it was one of the best of he's ever had. Which he does not say lightly. So that being said:

Snooze's A.M. Eatery= ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Our only regret was that we weren't hungry enough to eat just yet. Their menu looks scrumptious. With a few extra directions from the barista/bartender we headed back out. And finally found our destination! 

The 16th Street Mall was in complete chaos and disarray with all the construction going on, but we aren't going to hold it against them. While our minds were thinking mall, and there actually is a brick and mortar mall, it has the feel of a strip mall with all the little stores along the way. We actually found signs of relics of days gone by:

(Referring to the sign, not the tourists.) We were so worn out by this point that we decided to look at few places and make a plan to come back with final choices on purchases the next day. While we did see the mall and a few of the stores, we didn't make any stops in there that day. The tourists shops were EVERYWHERE!! Stopping at a few of them, we decided that Where The Buffalo Roam was probably our top choice. (Might or might not be because it reminded us of Hunter S. Thompson, if you are familiar with him, you will get the reference.) 

Where The Buffalo Roam was a very cool little shop with something new to see in almost every square inch of space they have available. With everything to t-shirts, and all the usual touristy stuff to localized fossils, it is definitely worth looking at if you are touring the  mall. Most of the other gift shops felt very "cookie cutter" but this one stood out. Only real downfall was it seemed over-crowded with stuff and was very hot!

Where The Buffalo Roam = ⭐⭐⭐⭐

We then stopped at the Target because Ahnah had to see with her own eyes that a 3-Story Target actually existed in this world. Very cool to see but had a very poor selection compared to the local targets. 

We then stopped for lunch at a cool little place for lunch...but that deserves a post all of it's own. After lunch we decided it was time to return to "home" with a much better plan for the next day. Most important lesson of the day: When coming out of the Union Station in downtown Denver....turn RIGHT instead of left and you'll be just fine. Till next time....stay weird. 

Bob's Atomic Burgers

 Continuing our journey throughout the beautiful state of Colorado, we find ourselves in the town of Golden. Not only is the town beautiful, but for those of us who do not know, Golden is home of the Coors Brewery. Even though we did not get to enjoy a tour of the brewery, we did get to check out and wade into the river that flows through it and is an important ingredient in the beer. It was pleasant to see the people sunbathing, wading, and even tubing down the river as they enjoy a late summer day but on a personal note, Coors Banquet(nicknamed "Yellowjackets" on a certain popular TV show) happens to be 1 of Brad's favorite all time beers so it made it extra special to him. 

  Moving on...after enjoying a nice part of the day down by the mountain stream, it was time to get some lunch which brings us to the main part of this post: Bob's Atomic Burgers. Now, this is not to be confused with the hit animated TV sitcom of: Bob's Burgers...2 separate things. 

  The only thing negative that we can really say about this place is that when it is busy, there is not much room to move around in there. However, this should prove how much business this place gets and they do have outside patio seating, to be fair. 

  With the minor negative out of the way, let us focus on all the positive. It is for sure an unique restaurant experience and a fun place to visit. It has interesting art work in the restaurant which includes a mural displaying anything from Indiana Jones waiting in line to get in to Captain Jack Sparrow walking out with his order next to the DeLorean. The staff is laid back, friendly, and willing to help with anything they can. Instead of giving you a "number" to be called for your order, they give you celebrity names to call out which is a fun way of doing things. The food is not overly priced and the burgers are quite tasty. Our favorite feature of this establishment would probably be the fact that you fill out a custom order "sleeve" for your burger so it is done YOUR way. For instance, if the burger is not to your liking, it would be part to blame for yourself not filling out the sleeve properly. Hard to mess up an order when you are able to customize it to exactly what you want! 

Final Thoughts: This place is a "hole in the wall" kind of place, not a chain that we are aware of. For us, these places can be treasure but for some people, they would rather stick to the big chain places that they know. We highly recommend trying this place out at least once if you want a different kind of restaurant experience. We look forward to visiting Bob's Atomic Burgers again after we dip our toes into the fresh waters of the mountain stream flowing beautifully wild throughout the town of Golden, Colorado...of course ;) 

Buffalo Bill's Grave

 Hey guys, back again with another post on our adventures in the amazing state of Colorado. The same day that we visited the Colorado Mills Mall we also made the harrowing trip up (yes, UP!!) to visit Buffalo Bill's Grave On Lookout Mountain.

If you ever have the chance, we highly recommend going. But....have someone who is willing to drive you the first time! My gosh we cannot even describe the scenery, or the sheer terror of the trip up the mountain. There were times when Ahnah had a death grip on the handle in the backseat. It's not comforting at all when you see paramedics with rock climbing equipment heading down the side of a steep mountain in our opinion! 😲 

It was worth every single scare though, it was one of the most stunning views of the entire trip. 

The main attraction though, Buffalo Bill's Grave on Lookout Mountain did not fail to meet every expectation we both had. The altitude was a slight adjustment for our Southern lungs but it wasn't that bad. Pictured below is the memorial itself, Buffalo Bill sure picked himself a beautiful place to be buried in.

We must have spent an hour or more exploring the grounds and the gift shop....well as tourists we can state it was in our top 5. It definitively had a lot to look at with something eye-catching at every turn. So much to see. We did end up purchasing several small things, and we love the reusable tote bag that we use for grocery shopping ever week. Brings a smile and great memory to our faces. They also had the cutest little cafe with a gorgeous view but we didn't eat there as we had grabbed a small snack at the mall but the menu looked quite enticing. 

Overall opinions on Buffalo Bill's Grave on Lookout Mountain=⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

We were all smiles as we headed off to our next adventure.

Hollywood Cowgirl

 Continuing our journey through Colorodo Mills Mall, we visited another store worth mentioning: Hollywood Cowgirl. 

As we had other locations to explore, we were not able to check out every single store that we wanted to in the mall so we only picked out the ones that caught our attention the most. Hollywood Cowgirl certainly was an attention getter as we passed by it so we had to check it out. We had nothing in particular that we were searching for but since it is a ladies apparel type of store mostly, we figured there may be some sort of unique souvenir for Ahnah. 

There are a few different vibes that we caught while in the store: 1. The apparel was unique and very pleasing to browse through. 2. However, the prices were not on the cheap side at all. Mostly moderate to expensive pricing. 3. We were the only ones in the store at the particular time and the lady running the store seemed to have very little interests in us being present and also seemed to be occupied by other things. It was not until she realized that we might actually be spending money in the store that she started paying attention to us and then acted professionally. We purchased a beautiful shawl for Grandmother that had her favorite color (purple) in it and she absolutely adored it. As we were finalizing the purchase, the lady then became more friendly and proceeded to inform us of the active role that her organization has in Colorado pertaining to the rodeo/horses industry. We find it to be great that companies want to be involved in the community and reach out in other ways but not at the costs of sacrificing potential business in your retail store. 

Upon further investigation, we found out that they permanently closed down one of their locations in downtown Denver which is a very popular spot for retail businesses...could this be because they are involved in too many things to operate multiple stores or is it a whole other reason??? We will leave that up to our readers to decide. 

Final thoughts: We would recommend people to check out this store for themselves to make their own judgement as we have mixed opinions of it. We did find a gem as we were there with the shawl and it just may have that unique gift that you are looking for. For us, we enjoyed browsing through the store for the 1 time but, probably will not be making future visits. 

2nd and Charles

 After getting our caffeine kick and boost of energy we headed off to the Colorado Mills Mall to see what kind of trouble we could get in to....and boy did we! Ahnah had to keep reminding Brad that we only had so much extra space in our luggage. 😂 Our favorite store in the mall (besides loving that they had a HUGE Target as an anchor store.) was by far 2nd and Charles.

Now, for those of you who are not familiar with this awesome store, 2nd and Charles is a very cool store that sells new and used books, comic books, movies, DVD's, cd's, video games, etc. Almost any type of media that you can think of-they probably have it. Including vinyl if you are a collector, it's a "must not miss type of store". We actually spent a few hours in there just perusing their incredible selection. Ahnah bought a pin to attach to her backpack and Brad....well he bought half the store. Just kidding!! But he did come out of there with a few video games. He also fell in love with the fact that they do "Mystery Boxes". For a set price you can get a huge, taped up box of either DVD's, comic books or cd's. It took everything in Brad to leave the store without shipping a few of those home! 

While we absolutely LOVED the brick and mortar store, the employees were friendly and helpful, the selection was pretty good and the prices are very reasonable....Can't say the same for online ordering. Ahnah was highly  disappointed with the website when she ordered the mystery box for Brad as a Christmas present. The layout felt very old fashioned, and it's very hard to find anything easily. The checkout process felt very slow. The ONLY positive thing I can say about the website is that customer service is extremely fast, just not that friendly. But expecting friendliness could just be a "Southern" thing. Ahnah was also shocked about the fact that when the mystery box arrived, it was poorly packaged. Someone had thrown all the movies in a box 3 times too big for the amount of movies with nothing securing them. No cardboard, styrofoam, bubble wrap...just nothing. Still waiting to see if any of the movies are damaged unfortunately.

So in conclusion:

2nd and Charles brick and mortar store =⭐⭐⭐⭐

2nd and Charles website and shipping process=⭐⭐

Stay tuned for more adventures with Brad and Ahnah.

Dutch Bros Coffee

 We took a trip in September of 2023 to visit some relatives in Colorado. We had almost 2 weeks to discover and explore lots of wonderful places that are not always available to us in the South. This blog will actually be continued in several more posts in the very near future to document our experiences. Let us start with Dutch Bros Coffee:

After our 2 hour flight on United Airlines out of Memphis, TN, we decided that we would need a good "pick me up" to start our day of long adventuring. Not only was this our first trip on an airplane together, but it was also our first trip to Colorado together. We could have been regular and stuck with that "popular" coffee shop that everyone knows around the country...but we are on vacation. So, we went to the local coffee shop of Dutch Bros Coffee in Thornton, CO.

Ahnah ordered the Caramel Pumpkin Brulee, Brad ordered the Kicker. 

Caramel Pumpkin Brulee=excellent beverage. It was very smooth, creamy, and just the right amount of pumpkin flavor. The brulee sprinkles on the top were the best part and really took the beverage to another level. 

Kicker=also an excellent beverage. Had a real nice Irish Cream flavor to it. This beverage had the perfect balance of "cream and kick" to it that was desired. In addition, it definitely held up to its name of Kicker with the espresso mixed into it. 

We absolutely enjoyed our experience so much so that we went back a few more times during our trip. Their beverages were fresh and did not have any kind of old or burnt flavor to it. The prices were very much reasonable according to the product we received. Also, the employees were very friendly and helpful to us and seemed to enjoy what they do. 

 

Final Thoughts: If you are a coffee fan and/or special beverage fan, we highly recommend Dutch Bros Coffee. When we return to Colorado, we will be pleased to see the smiling faces waiting on us.