Labor Day 2016My 15th trip to Denver was for
Labor Day Weekend 2016. We flew SW out of EWR on Friday morning and returned out of DEN on Monday morning, landing in the late afternoon. After parking by my mother's house near EWR, she kindly drove us to the airport. As we walked up to the checkin counter, I reached into my pocket to grab my wallet, and my heart sunk. My wallet! After a brief freakout session, I realized I must have left it in my car back at my mother's house.
That moment when you get to the airport and realize you left your wallet at home.
Thankfully, we were there an hour and a half early, so I was able to run back, grab the wallet and make it back to the airport with enough time to still sit around the gate for 30 minutes before the flight. Phew. What a start, eh?
We landed in Denver a few hours before Shabbos, and my father in law graciously picked us up from our favorite door.
After a great Shabbos with family, we went out Motzai Shabbos to our favorite stop,
Bonnie Brae.
Usually on a short weekend trip, we like to leave Denver early Sunday so that we get home with enough time to rest up before the week, but on a holiday weekend, we could leave on Monday, which gives us a full day Sunday to do a Coloradan activity. We decided to go to
Seven Falls which is in the city of Colorado Springs. The trip took a little over an hour and passed by some beautiful Colorado scenery.
Timed perfectly as 2 trains passed by each otherWhen we arrived, we learned that you can no longer drive all the way to the parking lot by Seven Falls. Instead, your GPS will take you to a parking lot by the Broadmoor, a luxury hotel in CO, where you can park for free and take a free shuttle for the 5 minute drive to Seven Falls. There was a good 15 minute wait to get on a shuttle, which I have to imagine was due to the holiday weekend.
Once we arrived at Seven Falls, we waited on another line to purchase tickets. There was a shorter line for those who had purchased tickets online, and I was tempted to buy on the spot from my phone, but we decided to just wait it out as the line was moving quickly. The cost was $14 per adult. Finally, we were ready to head in!
There's a 15 minute walk from the entrance to the falls, where you walk along a stream (the resulting end of the falls) in between mountains. Alternatively, you could take a shuttle for about $2 instead of walking.
After the pleasant stroll, we arrived at the base of the falls. Seven Falls is aptly named due to the tall waterfall that breaks down into 7 separate sections. What makes this activity more than just seeing a waterfall is that there is 224-step staircase you can climb from the bottom to the top of the falls.
The climb was a bit nerve-racking as you felt the stairs tremble as you stepped and you could see through the holes in the metal below. We took a break to catch our breath at the halfway point platform and then trekked up the rest of the way.
Getting to the top is a bit anti-climactic as it doesn't end in some "wow" view, but it felt good to get back on solid ground. We sat down to rest up and then explored a bit. There are 2 paths through the forest, with a sign indicating that one takes 40 minutes roundtrip and leads to an overlook, while the other takes 20 minutes and leads to another waterfall. We opted for the shorter path till the waterfall, which was nice, but as impressive as the main falls.
We headed back to the stairs, took them down (much easier!), checked out the gift shop and then went for the second way to experience the falls. Here, you could either take the 100 or so stairs up the mountain or the elevator inside the mountain. We took the elevator, which led to a small platform atop the mountain that had the best view of the falls.
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I'd say it's worth checking out both experiences. We took some pictures and then took the stairs down. We walked back along the stream, waited on line for the shuttle and took it back to the parking lot where we got the car and headed back to Denver. For dinner, we went out to the
East Side Kosher Deli. I went for something I hadn't had before, the Korean Short Ribs. They were full of flavor and not too fatty. That was basically it for the night and the trip.
The next morning at the airport, we picked up some
Coffee Bean.
Unfortunately, I realized I had forgotten to check us in for our SW flight, so we got C boarding positions. (The ONE time we flew on a Monday instead of Sunday, so I could have checked in on Sunday as opposed to when checkin is normally on Shabbos.
) At the gate, I was offered $40 to upgrade one of our boarding numbers to A6. I could have technically gone on my own and held a seat for my wife, but that's never comfortable, so we just decided we'd sit in the first middle seats we found, even though it meant we wouldn't be sitting together. In the end, this was kinda nice because we were able to get 2 middle seats in the first 5 rows. Before we knew it, we were landing back on the East Coast. Realizing we were by EWR at dinner time, we instinctively headed for
New Kosher Special for our favorite Chinese food before heading back home.
Another fun trip to Denver!