Civic Center Park: Denver Pride

This park again, yes. This weekend was Pride Fest. We spent several hours checking out booths, eating giant rice krispie treats, listening to music, and watching a surprise wedding proposal- so sweet!! As I've said before, check out any of the events and fairs at Civic Center Park. There's a lot of stuff going on. And check out Pride next year!

Red Rocks: Skrillex

My brother came out to Denver to visit and see the Skrillex concert June 21 at Red Rocks. It was awesome! And I am too tired today from that show to write too much about it, but if you get a chance to see a concert at Red Rocks- dooooo iiiitttt! Skrillex said that Red Rocks looks like a combination of Lion King and Mars, and I think that's a good description.

Dillon Reservoir

Dillon Reservoir is not a part of Denver Parks and Rec. It's about two hours west of Golden, off the I-70. I want to include any sort of outdoorsy, Colorado type stuff we do on this blog too. We went camping here with our church. My car struggled to get up here, so I was nervous going up. But it was easy to come back down.

This is a really beautiful town. We pass through Idaho Springs, which I learned has rapids. Dillon Reservoir is also right next to Silverthorne, Co. There was still snow on the mountains but everything is also turning green and growing. I learned a lot about camping this trip! Silly things that maybe I should have known. We were right near the water, so that was relaxing. It was warm during the day and cold at night. It even snowed for a half an hour and stopped just as suddenly- crazy Colorado weather. The elevation is about 9,000, so I felt like an old wheezing granny.

Cainen spent a good 45 minutes when we first got there throwing rocks. He spent a lot of time wandering around by himself. Madison and I hiked around a bit. We had a camp fire at night, which the kids said was one of their favorite parts. They even had fun during the day starting and putting out the fire, again and again. We all definitely will be going camping again.

Civic Center Park

We've been to Civic Center Park before. They have a lot of fairs here and events, so we'll probably be coming here many more times too. Last time we were here for the Cinco de Mayo celebration. This year we went to the People's Fair event. Madison wanted to see some of the bands play, so that was a lot of fun for her. We walked around the booths and saw some cool art. They have a lot of non-profit organization booths there too so we visited the Planned Parenthood and Gender Identity Center booths. We also found a booth about becoming vegan, which we probably won't ever be vegan, but it was nice to learn some recipes and tips about incorporating it. I'd definitely recommend going to some of the events here.

Wash Park

We were at Wash Park last year and had a great time. We rented the surrey and rode around. I don't like how crowded this park is and I live near some really nice parks, so this isn't a park I would come to regularly. However, I like all the things you can rent here. The kids really wanted to do kayaking but they didn't have enough, so we did paddle boating. This was actually a momentous occasion, because they had a traumatic paddle boating experience about six years ago and never ever wanted to go on a paddle boat again. We were tired from a long day, but it was a lot of fun. We'll probably be back to do kayaking next time.

Martin Luther King Park

I didn't really like Martin Luther King Park. It's not that it's not a nice park. It has a trail to walk around the park, grass area, and a playground. Maybe it was the way it was laid out or it's location, but I just didn't feel like I cared too much and I wouldn't go back. I'm sure if I lived in the neighborhood I would be here all the time though.

This wasn't taken at MLK but I liked it, so wanted to add it somewhere.

Westerly Creek Park

Westerly Creek Park is right across from Central Park, so we just walked down and across the street. I wanted to see the creek. We had a lot of fun at this park! We saw more snakes, a couple adults and a few baby snakes. We kept trying to spot them and in concentrating so much on spotting them we nearly ran into one. We also saw birds going crazy under this bridge. It seemed like they were nesting or feeding their young. I'm not sure, but they were flying around like mad and they actually pooped on Madison's phone. :) I would definitely come out here again, and apparently definitely in the summer months.

Central Park

I really love Central Park. The layout is really cool. It's a large, long strip of a park. It has an awesome playground, which my kids are a bit old for, but still. There are plenty of sidewalk space for Cainen to use his skateboard. We can walk around the entire park, there is a ton of grass space, and places to picnic and barbecue. I would definitely go to this park and we'll probably go again. This last time we went was exciting because we saw a snake! I don't know why this was super exciting for us, especially me and Mad, but we really loved it. Someone told us they were Bull Snakes, which are like Garden Snakes. Central Park is also right across the street from Westerly Creek Park, which is then also right across the street from Greenway Park. So there are definitely a lot of places to walk or run if you would like.