Day Two: Denver, Colorado

After a fun night in LoDo, we began our morning with a late breakfast and a nice walk around Stephanie’s neighborhood in Cherry Creek. We critiqued houses as we walked and had a “you know you’re in Denver when…” moment when we passed by a decked out Bronco’s van parked in a neighbor’s driveway. All in all it was a really nice neighborhood with a huge park filled with kids and a beautiful walking path along Cherry Creek. Steph says she can ride her bike along the pathway down to the local farmer’s market in the summertime without ever stopping for a light….how convenient!

Later that afternoon we headed to the famous Casa Bonita in Lakewood. Best described as a wacked-out Mexican Disneyland, this themed restaurant seats over 1,000 people in their 52,000 square foot palace and boasts live entertainment like a mariachi band, cowboy shootouts, gorillas, puppet shows, and a thirty-foot water fall complete with cliff divers.

Upon entering the huge pink building (oddly located in center of a strip mall), you are led through a long winding corral, much like Disneyland or any other bustling theme park. Thankfully we went there early enough in the afternoon to miss the lengthy wait in line. In order to enter the main area of the restaurant, you must order a main course off the menu. As any blog or review of Casa Bonita will tell you, the food is nothing to write home about so its best to just think of this as an admission fee. We had a lot of fun exploring the huge restaurant and happily ended our Casa Bonita experience with some delicious (and free) sopapillas.

If you can tolerate South Park, check out the Casa Bonita episode which features Cartman taking extreme measures to get invited to Kyle’s birthday party at Casa Bonita. If you’re thinking of visiting Casa Bonita, be sure to read this awesome article entitled “How to Survive Casa Bonita, the World’s Weirdest Mexican Restaurant” by Joel Warner for some great tips and hilarious antics.

We ended the night at a great little sports bar called Govnr’s Park in Capitol Hill. We enjoyed a lively crowd for the Rockies game followed by the Nuggets first playoff game. I had some awesome fish tacos for dinner with an ice cold hef (which was buy one get one free during happy hour). Before heading home we ran into my friend Laura’s sister who was sitting a few tables down from us the entire time…what a small world it is!

Stay tuned for day three of our Denver trip!