Visiting this weekend!! What to do? (Denver, Aurora: power lines, to rent, houses)

[patblue03]

Hey!
My fiance and i are comin to Denver this weekend (thurs - Sun) to check out a bunch of communities.
We are coming from socal and thinking about moving in a year.
We will be getting in at 9:30 on thurs and flying out at 5:30 on sunday.
We'd love to just roam around and look at model homes etc, but what would also be a good use of our time to look at besides homes. schools? parks? libraries? rec centers? anything in downtown?

what also could we do to make it somewhat of a mini-vacation as well?

we have been toying with the ideas of castle rock, highlands ranch, littleton, parker, golden, aurora, arvada, lone tree, etc...
any ideas on what to do with our full days on fri and sat

AND what would be some good things to go do with my new camera and get a taste of the colorado scenic environment?

any help would be great!!!!!!!!!!

Pat

[Charles]

Originally Posted by patblue03

what would also be a good use of our time to look at besides homes. schools? parks? libraries? rec centers? anything in downtown?

what also could we do to make it somewhat of a mini-vacation as well?

we have been toying with the ideas of castle rock, highlands ranch, littleton, parker, golden, aurora, arvada, lone tree, etc...
any ideas on what to do with our full days on fri and sat

AND what would be some good things to go do with my new camera and get a taste of the colorado scenic environment?

any help would be great!!!!!!!!!!

Pat

I don't think you will have enough time to do all that. You mentioned eight communities. I looked at over 100 homes before I moved to COS. Took me one year to research thoroughly. I would pick the most important stuff. Good for you though, the weather is going to be great, sunny, clear, in the 60s.

[amymcf]

visit the coors brewery in golden (interesting tour and samples at the end) and go mountain biking in boulder (lots of places to rent bikes and some good trails). also, some good hiking trails in boulder too. red rocks amphitheater west of denver is also a great place to check out. check out their website and see if they have any good concerts playing this weekend.

[b.adams]

I think you need a little more specific game plan, because you won't have enough time to check all those areas out much, except maybe driving though a few sections of each.

Personally, I would eliminate Arvada, Aurora from the list.

Then I would start in Boulder, drive down to Golden, then drive to Littleton, then Check out highlands ranch, catch a little lone tree ... then I-25 down to Surrey Ridge, then Happy Canyon, the Castle Rock. If you have more time, I'd check out Larkspur. I'm talking mostly driving these places briefly.

I just threw in SUrrey Ridge and Happy Canyon because they are unique places along the way to Castle Rock. Technically, you could also skip lone tree and just go from highlands ranch to castle pines north (tech part of castle rock, not really) via. monarch ... then onward to Castle Rock.

[Katiana]

I agree it's too much to do. I would suggest keeping Arvada b/c it is a little bit different from the average 'burb with its own downtown and older houses (lots of new ones as well, OP!). You will find lots of model homes in the new communities. I don't know what's going on downtown this weekend, besides the usual drinking at the bars. You could pick up a Friday paper and look at the entertainment section.

[b.adams]

My Boulder advice would be: hit the Pearl Street mall for lunch or dinner if you can. There is free public parking down there. You could take a quick drive up Boulder canyon and turn around at Boulder Falls. A nice place to get out and walk is chataqua park. You can take a stroll up to the flatirons and back. Its really pretty. To see the countryside homes in Boulder, drive out S. Boulder road to 76th, then turn North (left) and go over to baseline rd, turn left, then go back into town along baseline, then turn right on CHerryvale and go till Arapahoe, then left on Arapahoe ... down to 28th or 30th ... and drive by the new mall there. Just ideas for Boulder. I grew up there and loved it!

IN golden, the town is fairly simple to see. You drive down toward the COORs brewery and you quickly in the cute little downtown area. There are homes up on lookout mtn and that drive can be pretty to drive up. You end up driving past buffalo bill's grave and can get out there for pics and/or a picnic. You can continue on that road till you run into I-70 and may end up near Genesse, which is expensive, but pretty and mtn-like, but city close ... some with killer views of the city lights from the mtns, some with killer views to the West looking towards mt evans.

THen drive back down I-70 to C-470 and head South to maybe Ken Caryl. You could check out Ken Karyl valley (to the right), or turn left and head over to maybe wadsworth and then head south into littleton. Go down to the Mall and then turn left and head over to Littleton Blvd. Check that area out.

THen eventually head down Santa Fe or Broadway into HIghlands Ranch. In Highlands Ranch, check out the library, light rail and ameneties near Broadway and Highlands Ranch Pkwy. THe Library is back behind the safeway, about a block to the West (towards mtns is always west in front range). There is a tattered cover (great bookstore) there and a bunch of neat restaurants. The RTD (bus) station there takes you to the light rail, if you work downtown. I'd also check out Redstone Park and the Westridge Rec Center. I would take highlands ranch pkwy or wildcate reserve over to University & HRPKWY and checkout the shopping there around the Wild Oats area. There is another rec center there (Eastridge). You can get seriously lost in the area, but check it out ... and notice the house and the greenbelts ... and pretty much every greenbelt has its own paths through it. There are parks all over the place. Your never more then 5 min from a grocery store.

Maybe from there, you could drive HRPKWY East ... becomes Lincoln Ave into lone tree. When you go under the power lines, your basically in Lone Tree. Its pretty small. Lone Tree runs over till about I-25 and go south about 1 mile and north about 2 miles. You could drive down Quebec, maybe see the gold course homes in Lone tree ... check out Park Meadows Mall over near Quebec and C470/I25 area.

From there, you could take I-25 south to Castle Rock. Possible excursions into SUrrey Ridge and Happy Canyon along the way.

I'll write up my Castle Rock advice in a little bit, if this kind of thing is helpful.

[patblue03]

yeah,
we weren't planning on going to all of those communities this weekend. those were just the communities that we had been possibly thinking of.
I think that we will go see model homes on friday and then open houses/model homes on sat & sun?
does that sound right?
i think we'll go to the coors brewery and boulder to check out that area.
we're pretty much interested in houses between $300k-$400k and built in the last 10 yrs.
i dont know if i am allowed to list websites for model homes and new communities, but i usually look at "newhomesource.com". is that a good one?

any other ideas?

[2bindenver]

What else are you looking for in a community?

$300-400k will get you a better than average house for the location, in any of those cities except Boulder & Lone Tree.

What are the needs for Commute? Recreation? Family?

[Katiana]

Just an FYI: the parking is not free on Pearl St. It is free several blocks to the north, which means walking a bit, but you sound young and healthy, so that shouldn't be a problem.

[dj32]

nothing in Denver? Are you only interested in the burbs? Denver is a great city itself, it would at least be nice to see the city proper versus just model homes in the burbs.