Rocky Mountain High - Ragnar Snowmass 2019 - Part 4

In Part 3 of the Snowmass blog series, we finished running the event!

After we said goodbye to Tim and Jake, we drove to downtown Aspen and battled for parking, before having a delicious lunch with Jen and Bryan.  We bid them adieu as well, and we headed back to Snowmass Village, to check into our home for the evening, the Westin.  We took some of the best showers in the world (the shower/bathroom itself was fine, but any shower after running for 24 straight hours and camping for multiple days is always amazing), and then promptly passed out in the hotel room bed for a delightful nap.

Upon awakening around 5:30pm or so, we put ourselves to the task of figuring out where we were eating dinner that night.  After doing another destination Ragnar in Vegas a few years back, and waiting FOREVER to eat dinner (due to the huge crowds of famished runners), I was determined not to repeat that experience, so before we even left for Snowmass, I made a reservation for the entire team at a nearby restaurant.  We'd been getting some weird, conflicting information about the restaurant in the past few days, however, and we finally figured out they had closed for the season a few months earlier (why OpenTable let us make a reservation at a place that was closed is a very good question, and it's something they should probably look into...).  As it happened, it turned out to just be four of us for dinner (Amadeo and Christina had booked an Airbnb in Aspen, so they'd be joining us), so it was much easier to find a spot, albeit at 8pm that night.

Since we were up and awake, Chris and I got dressed and wandered around Snowmass for a bit, stopping to have snacks/drinks at the Limelight Hotel before we headed to dinner proper.  As it turned out, we wandered right past our original dinner destination, State 38.

Why won't you guys let us eat here?

Our apertifs and amuse-bouches were great, and we wandered a bit further down the hill to the Viceroy Hotel, where we'd be eating dinner at their in-house restaurant, TORO Kitchen and Lounge.  Christina and Amadeo arrived right on time, and we thoroughly enjoyed our meal, even if our waiter was a bit of a flake.  Our buds did us the solid of driving us back up the giant hill to the Westin after we finished dinner, and we said goodbye to them before we crashed into bed once more.

We woke up decently early on Sunday morning, and we took yet another set of showers before heading into the Snowmass Mall area for coffee and chai at Fuel Cafe.  We wandered back to the Westin, where we enjoyed their buffet breakfast, and we then headed outside for a complimentary spin around the area, courtesy of the Snowmass Village Gondola.

Riding the gondola -

the windows are all pretty banged up from skis and whatnot,

but it's still a lovely view

We went back to the room to finish packing up, then checked out, and hopped in the car for the drive back to Denver.  Along the way, we stopped for lunch in Frisco, which we determined was totally adorable (we'd love to spend more time here, exploring the shops, and eating in even more of the dining establishments).

Passing through Glenwood Springs - 

we waved "hi" to the town and to the mayor

(in general - we didn't actually see him).

More tunnels!

Part of the Eagle River

Ugh, again with the ridiculously gorgeous scenery!

This time, we stopped at the Butternhorn Bakery and Cafe, and it was delicious; I had a chicken salad croissant, Chris had something else (I can't remember, truly - maybe a BLT?), and we both enjoyed coffee drinks.  We also grabbed some cookies to go, and we split a cookies and cream truffle before we left.  Fully stuff and caffeinated, it was back into the car for the final push to Denver!

Enjoying the cool breezes in Frisco

Noms!

Heading into Denver - that's Bronco Stadium!

Our home base for our one night in Denver was the Hotel Teatro, right near Union Station and downtown.  Chris has been on the Teatro's email list for years now, and he's always said if we get to Denver, we need to stay there.  Well, mission accomplished!  We were a bit early for check-in, so we chilled out in the lobby and relaxed until our room was ready.  Once inside, we unpacked, I took a bath in their gigantic soaker tub, and we got ready to head out on the town for the evening.

I'd planned out a list of places we might want to hit up for a bar crawl, and when Jake suggested a meal at Mercantile inside Union Station, we figured it would be a great place to start off the night with an amazing, fortifying meal.  We thoroughly enjoyed our food and drinks there and thank him for the excellent recommendation.  

We did start out the night with a bit of an unplanned detour -

we immediately walked out of the hotel

and went a good 1/3 of a mile in the wrong direction.

Oops!

At least we did get to see the giant blue bear

at the Convention Center.

The exterior of Union Station

After the Mercantile, we walked a few streets over to The Cruise Room, a historic bar inside the Oxford Hotel.  The bar's been around for over 100 years now, and it became a speakeasy when Prohibition came about, reemerging back into public life once that madness was over.  It's modeled after a lounge on the Queen Mary, and it has a super chill vibe, along with outstanding cocktails.  To celebrate the QM (who we visited more than a few times during our tenure in the LBC), I ordered the Queen Mary Punch; for his part, Chris had a classic martini, and both drinks were awesome.

Cocktail glamour shot

We figured we had one more stop in us after the Cruise Room, so we continued toward Coors Field to the Falling Rock Tap House.  I'd read they had a ton of different beer on tap, and that was quite the understatement.

That's Chris with just one side of the beer menu,

which also doesn't include the smaller menu for the extra special stuff.

Check out all of the bottles and taps behind him, too.

The whole place looked like this.

It was heaven.

The tap specials...the first page

We'd enjoyed a lot of beer by this point...

We probably had a few too many rounds at Falling Rock, but there was too much great stuff to try!  After settling our tab, we stumbled back to the Teatro and slept soundly, still tuckered out from the Ragnar madness.

On the next blog, we finish out our trip to Colorado by spending yet more time wandering around Denver, drinking beer.  It's not a bad deal, really.

Later!

Amy