Help building my Denver (and beyond) Itinerary! (Pueblo, Boulder: neighborhoods, wedding)

[apersonwhosaysthings]

My girlfriend and I are coming to Colorado (mostly Denver) for 6 nights for a wedding and to scope out the area as a potential place to live. This will be the first week of November.

Here is a rough itinerary we've set.

Wed - Arrive in Denver in PM. Get dinner/drinks in Boulder. Sleep in Boulder

Thur - Explore Boulder (local sites, shops, neighborhoods, nature). Pick up friends in Denver that are also attending wedding. Get dinner/drinks in Denver. Sleep in Denver

Fri - Casually explore Denver with friends. Wedding in PM

Sat - Be hungover. Get breakfast in Denver. Do more exploring (garden of the gods, Coors tour, Rocky Mountain National Park). Dinner at Casa Bonita. Sleep in Denver

* Sun - Breakfast in Denver, drive friends to airport for afternoon flight. Head to Glenwood Springs? Sleep there?

* Mon - Drive to Maroon Bells.

* Tue - Slow drive back to Denver for afternoon flight.

Friday and Saturday are kind of half days, so I feel that between the two we can get a pretty good feel for Denver. But once our friends leave on Sunday in the morning, my girlfriend and I want to take off somewhere and take advantage of the car we'll have and time alone.

We're not very experienced hikers/are not looking for a 6 hours hike and don't have an interest in skiing/snowboarding with the amount of time we have, so will be looking for amazing views while driving and nature spots with light/medium hiking aspects to spend some time.

So, for Sun - Tue, do you have any better recommendations for the use of our time?

At a high level, our trip looks like: Boulder > Denver > Glenwood Springs > Maroon Bells > Denver.

Thanks for reading!

[bluescreen73]

The $64,000 question is - when is this trip supposed to take place? The itinerary you've planned is arduous but doable with decent road conditions. A snowstorm in the mountains could derail your trip to Aspen completely.

[apersonwhosaysthings]

Oops - I knew i'd forget some info. We'll be going the first week of November.

We're going to have some sort of 4 door sedan. I doubt it will be amazing in the snow, probably just alright. I'm coming from the East and have dealt with snow all my life, but don't want to knowingly get myself into a bad situation.

[TCHP]

Originally Posted by apersonwhosaysthings

Sat - Be hungover. Get breakfast in Denver. Do more exploring (garden of the gods, Coors tour, Rocky Mountain National Park). Dinner at Casa Bonita. Sleep in Denver

This day looks out of reach. Rocky Mountain National park is 2-3 hours from downtown Denver to the northwest, Garden of the Gods is about an 1-1.5 hours south of downtown Denver. Combined with the hung over late state and desire to go to Golden for the Coors tour, 30-40 minutes west of downtown Denver, you may want to chose to go south to Garden of the Gods or north to RMNP, but not both. You could possibly substitute a trip to GoG with a visit to Red Rocks.

[asonnier]

I would hit Estes Park.

[Texas Ag 93]

Originally Posted by TCHP

This day looks out of reach. Rocky Mountain National park is 2-3 hours from downtown Denver to the northwest, Garden of the Gods is about an 1-1.5 hours south of downtown Denver. Combined with the hung over late state and desire to go to Golden for the Coors tour, 30-40 minutes west of downtown Denver, you may want to chose to go south to Garden of the Gods or north to RMNP, but not both. You could possibly substitute a trip to GoG with a visit to Red Rocks.

I was thinking the same. OP, you're not going to be able to do everything you want to do on Sat, so as suggested above, I would pick either RMNP or Garden of the Gods. If it were me, I'd opt for RMNP. Ideally, you should piggyback your time in Boulder and RMNP together given their proximity to each other.

[emm74]

If you do plan to visit RMNP, you need to pay attention to closures - even in the beginning of November, that's likely. Not that you can't get into the park at all, but you'll be limited on where you can go.

http://www.nps.gov/romo/planyourvisit/road_status.htm

[daprara]

weather
Reference Denver's 80202 10day weather underground graph; 4example 102317 Monday Tuesday dry 60F, Wednesday dry high 80. chance of lite rain Thursday am high 44F. There is a typical colorado 40 degree difference Wednesday -> Thursday.

Roads
heavy rush hr traffic for the Denver portion of i25/i70, even on weekends.

THINS TO DO (reference westword.com yelp.com)
Denver Mint tour
Denver has functional community theater and sometimes the Denver Center Performing Arts
lots of art brew pubs
Plimoth Restaurant a good reservations sit down dinner in the hood; 28th Ave, 80205
Sams 3 downtown or Pete's Kitchen on Colfax for a greasy breakfast lunch
goldhillinn.com in boulder for a real mountain cowboy dinner

lite hiking
inside boulder, Chautauqua Park, 900 Baseline Rd, Boulder, CO 80302. reasonable very lite hiking, well marked, parking, 900 Baseline Rd, Boulder, CO 80302

[abcdefg567]

I'd spend Wednesday-Friday in the Denver Metro (do Golden, Casa Bonita & Red Rocks then) and then the rest of the time in the mountains. Check local concerts (we have quite a few small venues with national acts near downtown) and like pp suggested, tours and other attractions *ETA, look at schedules for the Fillmore, Ogden, Bluebird, Gothic, etc. All are really cool or special on their own way.

Then Saturday, drive to Estes Park & See RMNP and Trail Ridge Road, take the scenic route by Grand Lake 33-40-i70 up to Glenwood Springs from there, then down and over to Maroon Bells, then down and over to Breckenridge - then i70 on Tuesday home...leaving early for traffic just in case.

GoG on Saturday would make your total drive time 6+ hours and it's sort of like Red Rocks. It's cool, but I'd see the springs on a separate trip. Then you could visit Pueblo and other stuff if you wanted.

[abcdefg567]

Also, I'd probably just drive through Boulder on your way to Estes/RMNP instead of taking i25. You can stop and have lunch and check it out then. Driving from DIA to Boulder and then back and then back again North, sounds exhausting imho.