Trip to Denver

I had not been to Denver since 2019 (read that blog post here), but when Steve and I saw that Paul McCartney was on tour, we knew this might be our last chance to see the living legend perform. He wasn't performing in Florida, so when we looked at the tour schedule, we thought it would be best to see him at Coors Field: the show was on a Saturday, and we both have friends in Denver, so it was a no-brainer! We booked our stay at the cute Queen Anne Urban Bed & Breakfast (the food was quite good, with fresh-baked cookies every afternoon, too!), and I made our itinerary to make the most of our weekend out West.

Here are the highlights from the trip (in no particular order):

Watching Paul McCartney live

This of course has to be the best part because it's the reason we flew all that way! For being in his early 80's, he seems to have a lot of energy (he played for 2.5 hours!), and his voice and finger dexterity on the guitar still seem in pretty good shape. He played some Beatles songs (but not Yesterday, which was a bummer), some Wings songs, and then some of his own stuff. But the best part was when he played Live and Let Die, when there was fire on stage and lots of fireworks! It was so cool and invigorating! I am not listing music videos here because his music is SO iconic; the list would be enormous!

Catching up with said friends

We met up with Steve's friends, Phil and Nikki; they know each other from going to Ravens games up in Baltimore. We partook in $5 martinis at Terminal Bar before enjoying a delicious meal at Mercantile, and we finished the night with cocktails and dessert at the Oxford Hotel's Cruise Room.

I had not seen my Theta sister Alexandra since I visited her in 2019. It was fun to see her and walk around the zoo with her and her family.

Visiting the Denver Zoo

Speaking of the Zoo, we had so much fun seeing all the different animals! We didn't want to wait in the LONG line to see the lion cubs, so we missed out on that. But we got to see almost everything else. I especially liked the reptile house; they had so many frogs and lizards I had never heard of before! But the signage in general around the zoo is lacking: they aren't very informational, with most signs just listing the common and Latin names of the animals. But we got lots of our steps in and enjoyed the beautiful sunny weather while checking out all the cool creatures.

Going to a concert at Red Rocks

Once we decided to go to Denver, we knew we wanted to check out Red Rocks, too, which is an outdoor amphitheater built into the rocks outside of the city. All Time Low was playing the night after the McCartney concert; we had never heard of them before, but we just wanted to see the venue. We were able to take a shuttle from Union Station (how convenient!), and the space is SO cool. And not only that, but the concert actually had three openers, so it felt like we were at a music festival! We saw The Paradox (probably my favorite of the night), The Cab, and Mayday Parade before the main act. We hadn't heard of any of these groups, but we had a great time. In the end, the lead singer of All Time Low, Alex Gaskarth, was losing his voice, and after just a few songs he had to cancel the rest of the show (and maybe the tour?); he felt really bad about it, but that meant we could head back early (and get warm!). I hope he feels better soon!

Here are some of the songs we heard:

The Paradox - Do Me Like That

The Cab - Temporary Bliss

Mayday Parade - By the Way

All Time Low - Dear Maria, Count Me In

This was such a fun, little trip! I really enjoy jet-setting (I flew to Las Vegas once for ONE day to see Gwen Stefani in concert with my sister!), so it was awesome to take a quick flight to Denver, spend a weekend doing ALL this neat stuff, and then just head back home to return to reality. We are so lucky to be able to do things like this!

We've got a few local get-aways coming up before the holidays, so stay tuned on those! I can't believe 2025 will be over before we know it! What other adventures are in store?!