Colorado Springs Anniversary Trip

To celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary, Jason and I took a little weekend getaway down to Colorado Springs at the beginning of August. Neither of us had been, so it was fun to get to be tourists together!

On Thursday night we dropped Kingsley off with his friend Charlie and drove down to the Springs. We had a bit of trouble getting checked in, but once we had the right room, it was great! We went to dinner at a little French place that I saw on Yelp and it was amazing! It couldn't have been a better start to our weekend away. We also got some Black Forest cake from a bakery there, since that was the flavor of Jason's groom's cake.

Friday morning we got up and drove to Manitou Springs to get on the cog railway for Pikes Peak! We rode the railway up the mountain and it was so cool. We could watch out the window the whole way. It took about an hour and a half to get up there. We got to stay at the top and take pictures for about 45 minutes, then we rode back down. Before we left the peak, we got a couple of the special donuts they make up there. They only work at 14,000 ft. I don't know, it tasted like a gooey cake donut to me! 

For lunch, we stopped by Rudy's, which is a barbecue chain from Texas. It's nothing like the places in Abilene... but it was still Texas barbecue. It satisfied a craving... sorta. Now I just want more! Pardon the bad picture, it's from my cell.

On Saturday we decided to go to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. We had heard really good things about this zoo. It's set into the side of a mountain and you can feed giraffes! So it sounded really cool... but it wasn't. Boo. It was way too crowded with rude people and screaming kids. I like kids fine, but it was like every parent had just given up. Just... so much screaming. And the zoo was kinda small and not worth the really high admission price. I'm probably spoiled by the Fort Worth Zoo and the St. Louis Zoo. Oh well.

Saturday night was our anniversary dinner. We decided to go all out and got a reservation at The Penrose Room at The Broadmoor Hotel. This was the BEST MEAL OF MY LIFE. It was incredible from start to finish. We were treated like royalty from the minute we walked in. Our table wasn't ready yet, so they had us go to the lounge/bar area. We got the best cocktails. I got a Penrose Sunset and Jason got a Bourbon Smash. So delicious.

When our table was ready, we found a note on the table from the maitre d' wishing us a happy anniversary and thanking us for celebrating with them! So sweet. Our table had an incredible view of the mountains. It seriously could not have been better. We got a four course meal that I'm going to write down here because I never ever want to forget it.

For appetizers, I got lobster and dark meat chicken with squid ink gnocchi. Sounds gross, but it was incredible! Jason got rabbit, and we shared a crab bisque that was the creamiest soup I've ever had. In between courses they would bring us bread or something else from the chef. For dinner I had Colorado Lamb Loin with risotto and baby vegetables. I can't even communicate with you how good it was. Jason had Suckling Pig cooked two ways. Amazing! We had red wine paired with our entrees. I'm usually a white wine girl, but this was so good. For dessert, I had what they called a chocolate log, which had chocolate moose and hazelnut and rice chocolate wafers. Delicious. Jason had some cherry and pistachio cake dessert. When they brought our plates out, they had written Happy Anniversary on both of our dessert plates in chocolate! I almost cried, it was the sweetest thing ever.

It was an amazing evening, and I don't think I'll forget it any time soon.

The morning we left, we went to Garden of the Gods on our way out of town. I'm sure it would be really cool if we didn't live so close to it, but it was kinda just a nice park, haha. I think I'm spoiled by living in Colorado... It was definitely beautiful, but we were ready to go home and get our pup!

Overall, it was an amazing weekend. I'm so thankful that we had the time to spend it together to celebrate 5 years together and dream about what is to come in the next 5!