Girl's Weekend 2014 - Part 2

Read Part 1 here.

Once we wrapped up our road adventure on Saturday we headed out to Pearl Street in Boulder. Pearl Street in some ways reminds me of Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis except there are no buses driving down the middle, and the stores are much more interesting, and there are usually more performers (it was a little cold while we were there so not so much)... essentially it was way cooler. We were planning to go hiking and meet up with some more people the next day so we thought this might be our only opportunity to explore this area.

We had about an hour to shop before meeting Andrea for dinner (Andrea also went to high school with us and has lived in Colorado since 2000). We were mostly looking to bring back some things for our loved ones. My family is pretty easy and they are satisfied with t-shirts so I picked up a couple of those and while at the t-shirt shop silliness ensued.

I'm really not irritated here - I'm channeling my inner panda... or something.

Lots of blue and orange to be seen in this Super Bowl state

After shopping we met Andrea at Shine, a gluten free, kind of farm to table restaurant. This was probably my favorite meal of the trip - pan seared ruby trout with coconut creamed kale, grain free house made parsnip gnocchi with local squash and sage - num, num, num. The restaurant was cozy, we had a great waitress, and there was even a backroom that you could pay a cover to listen to music. We were there long enough that the dinner tables were eventually removed from the middle of the floor and a DJ played music to people dancing. In reality I was probably a little out of my element (think hipsters), but I would highly recommend this place.

After dinner we decided to stop a little closer to home for one last drink at Waterloo (the name was inspired by Waterloo Records from Austin, TX, and has a decidedly Johnny Cash inspiration).

My what a big eye you have.

We got home way after my bedtime (1:30?), and I had trouble sleeping because I was freezing. Like shivering. I even put my socks on and I never sleep in my socks. After about 5 hours of sleep it was time to get up as we had a lot to fit into our last full day.

Susannah was going to meet up with family that lived nearby and Joanna and I were going to head north to meet up with my former co-worker, Ashley. Ashley just moved to Colorado three weeks earlier to be part of the Yoga Travel Tree team. Since Joanna is a yoga instructor and does yoga therapy (and Thai massage and is going to school for Ayurvedic Medicine...) I knew she'd like to connect with Ashley and learn more about what she is doing.

Joanna didn't own a hair dryer so this air purifier was the next best thing

Max the cat

We randomly selected a spot somewhat between Ashley and Joanna and ended up at Cheese Importers in Longmont. This place was probably my second favorite food stop on our trip. Fresh, delicious food with a great atmosphere.

Mozzarella sandwich and sweet potato with ginger soup. Drooling.

They had a deli/restaurant area, a cheese shop, and an area filled with books, dishes, food... I really wish they'd open a location near me.

Actually looked like a really good book.

As I mentioned before we were hoping to go hiking, but determined that it just wasn't in the cards for this trip. This gives me extra motivation to travel back here in the near future and next time I will bring Jesse as I know he would love it.

After lunch we decided to head back to Pearl Street in Boulder to check out more of the shops, and to just get out and moving. If we weren't going to hike I still wanted to be moving around.

This guy was building snow sculptures.

After shopping we wrapped up our day with Sushi. The town started to shut down around 3 pm since there was this little thing called the Super Bowl happening that night and the Denver Bronco's were playing in it. We decided to avoid the crowds and found the only non-sports bar still open.

We loaded up on sushi and then stopped for some treats to eat while watching the last of the game. We decided we better watch at least some of the game since Denver was playing in it. Meh. They didn't win, but it was still fun to watch. 

We had to get up around 4 am the next morning to get to our early morning flight so we went to bed early (after Susannah got a massage) and Joanna even let me sleep on her heated massage mat. I still only ended up with 6 or so hours of sleep, but I was nice and toasty.

So the weather wasn't what we hoped and we didn't get around to hiking and yoga as we planned, but it was so good to hang out with these ladies. It really was quite the adventure and I can't wait to go back.