Boulder Bliss

After working on about 6 presentations in the past few weeks for my job, I was anxiously awaiting a weekend away from the boredom of sitting at my computer, searching on Pubmed, and trying to come up with semi-intelligent presentations. What was supposed to be a weekend away in Boulder, CO with Robin's parents for an "economic summit", turned into a weekend escape filled with food, alcohol, and good times in this picturesque location.

We arrived into Denver and headed out in our rented minivan. Leave it to Robin Leach to bypass any remotely fun her fiance and to enjoy wine and hor'dourves with their friends on the patio in the 75+ degree Colorado weather.

We then headed to the actual destination of the weekend...the St. Julien Hotel & Spa in Boulder, CO. Leave it to Robin's family to pick the swankiest hotel in the city. Our room was gorgeous, complete with a stunning view of the Flatiron mountains. After god-know-how-many glasses of wine, we were all pretty much spent for the evening.

Saturday was gorgeous. We walked around downtown and Pearl St., and eventually making our way to the Farmer's Market. Unfortunately, we had packed tightly and had little room to add anything extra to our luggage on the trip back. Regretfully, I had to pass up the many herbs and spices and other organic items for sale at the market. After enjoying sushi at Hapa, we then went on a tour of the city via car, ending up at the Boulder Kinetics parade. This unusual event featured human powered vehicles, designed by geeky engineers like Robin to traverse land and water. Each vehicle had a theme - ranging from pirates to space shuttles with everything in between - and each member of the teams had obviously consumed their fare share of alcoholic beverages before the parade!

From there, we went on the wedding tour of Robin's sister's upcoming event. The most unusual of locations was Redstone Meadery. I had never had mead. In fact, I wasn't entirely sure what the hell it even was. However, after the 9 shot sampler, I was well versed in the various types of mead - sparkling vs non-sparkling, etc. I opted for the raspberry flavored sparkling type to consume the rest of the afternoon.

After a long day, Robin proceeded to make the night even longer with his heated discussion of how he plans on saving the environment/world while we consumed mojitos and ate at the South American restaurant Aji. I zoned out at the end, unable to take his pontificating on the subject. But, I suppose his conclusion was that the world is doomed. How depressing!

Our last day in Boulder was spent enjoying brunch at the Boulder Tea House, built compliments of the people of Tajikistan. We then walked along the Boulder Creek and went bicycle shopping, relishing in the fact that people outside of Dallas are actually fit and healthy! I think this added fuel to the fire in Robin's arguments as to why we should leave Dallas. By this time, our weekend was over and we were back to our lazy lifestyle in Dallas of sitting on the sofa in front of the TV eating take-out food from Eatzi's. Thank goodness for home!