Day 1: The Departure

So as the title so suggests my cousin, patrick had decided to get married, tie the knot, get hitched, whatever you want to call it- but anywho he is planning this event in a state called wyoming. incase you didnt know where this wonderful state is i inserted a pic-c-chur for you. its basically near this place called the middle of nowhere. ha. so after some/much debate we bought our plane tickets to denver. and so the saga begins...

So we'll start from the very beginning which is Sunday night actually at Lauras grad party which was top notch where Mrs. Lavenberg is officially my new hero. But anyway i finish packing around130 or so and am woke up (not very nicely might i add) around like 5 or something. yeah. this is me. not so much awake at this ungodly hour. So then we catch our flight

and ps a note about flying. i enjoy flying very much so- even with the crying babies- yes we had one of them onboard with us...but still that was not the one thing that got to me. it is people who downright disrespect the window seat privilage. for example this man on our flight...
blatent disgregard for the opportunity. while my sisters and i battle for the seat this man is freakin slobering all over the window. goodness. anywho 3 and 1/2 hours and some interesting skymall catalog items later we arive in denver!

woohoo! so from denver we got to play the sick game of- finddd yourrrr rentalll carrr (said it that game showvoice you know- okay nevermind)

but anywho we passed- yeah team.
exciting i know. so from here we traverse to Denver the city. aka LoDo. (as in LOwer Denver- well kinda the DO i guess if you misspell DenvOr- i dunno). But anywho we saw the infamous arch. haha nah just messing with you. were not in St. Louise silly. but we did do some shopping on the 16th street mall as it was called

and walked around a bit..

and visited a store entitled NIKETOWN.

shoes everywhere. i was in freakin HEAVEN. it was unbelievable. you have no idea how much self restraint- no correction i would have defintely walked out with a pair of shoes if it was not for the "colleen you have 902341908257 pairs of sneakers you are not buying another one" wah wah wah. gosh. never never have too many sneakers. never. sorry. so yes. after being dragged out we went to visit el capidorah (the capital- thats my spanish for you guys)

and we visited the offical one mile high step.

yes we were officially one vertical mile above sea level. exciting- i know.

and this is us again. and here we are at a different step- oh wait- no ha just kidding we havent gone anywhere we are still one mile up. still on the same step. ha. so then we did a bit more walking and passed some sweet ass bikes... they were actually taller than the people riding them...i should have asked for a ride... but anywho we then leave denver- now from here just prepair yourselves for a little bit-o-scenery.. and when i say a bit i mean a lot.

now i do have to admit that i would not go right ahead and call myself a nature lover. if you told me we were going to go look at mountains i think i might have been like oh sweet cool- NOT. butttt after visiting colorado i do have to say that it was unbelievable. seriosuly. not lie. it was sick. these things called mountains were EVERYWHERE. i was honestly blown away. i am going to throw in a little cliche here but picture dont really do justice even though we took like 89234 of them. yes- so as you can see i am now i am pretty much one with nature- were basically tight so we continue our drive and eventually arive at Estes Park. here we stop (which you will find we do much of during this trip) and feed the chipmonks. hah they were cute. so we check into our hotel and then hit up the rodeo. hah yes. this is like the hardcore-serious-western rodeo. they dont play games. but it was actually really fun even though i think that us- in our tshirts and gym shorts- exactly blended right in with the cowboy boots-plaid shirt-big belt buckle-hat wearing crowd. oh well. it was fun with the best part by far being an event called mutton busting where little kids are pulled from the crowd, outfitted in a lifejacket and bicycle helmet and placed on the back of a sheep with the only instructions being "oh just go out there and hold on as hard as you can" it was grade A entertainment right there. and of course the bull riding was pretty nuts.

but this so ends day one at Lauras/home/philadelphia/denver/estes park/the rodeo. yeah it was pretty intense. good thing we gained 2 hours. not even going to lie when i tell you that i was absolutely beat. but i have basically fallen in love with denver/colorado. its great.