Colorado Trip

we were in colorado a few years back and went to boulder and toured the celestial seasonings tea company. they have a nice gift shop with lots of teas and things, garden areas. the kids enjoyed watching the prairie dogs outside pop up and down. we drove from illinois and on the return trip went to south dakota to mount rushmore and a place called bear country. they loved bear country totally.

I went a couple of years ago to Colorado and visited Boulder and Colorado Springs. Downtown Boulder was great to walk around and enjoy the culture - cute and interesting shops. Estes Park was a fun place to go hiking and see the deer & elk. We stayed with friends/family out there so I can't comment on accomodations. If you get a chance to travel down to Colorado Springs we enjoyed the old town area and drive up to the "top" of Pikes Peak.

We lived in the Denver area for 6 years and it is beautiful. Boulder is only about 30 minutes from downtown Denver. You can see if the Colorado Rockies are in town, the tickets there usually are pretty reasonable and it is a fun time for the family, lots of home runs since the air is light. You can also go to Six Flags which is also located right near the ball field. I would definitely try to take a day trip up to the ski resort areas. Rocky Mt Natl. Park is a beautiful place, we took our kids, but they got altitude sickness, which we believe was from going fast then slow around the curves on the roads resulting in a rocking motion, sort of like sea sickness. Hiking is also quite enjoying. There are several hiking trails all over the Boulder area as well as the foothills. I have also stayed at the Stanley hotel in Estes Park, which is supposed to be "haunted" and was the site for the movie The Shining..OK.old..no ghosts.
The altitude sickness seems to be minimized by drinking a coke and the syrup soothes the stomach.
Colorado weather cannot be beat..NO bugs and NO humidity.

We took a fantastic summer vacation to Colorado for 1 week two years ago. We stayed in Downtown Denver. We went to a great bug/butterfly museum in Westminster, about 45 min north of Denver. We didn't go to Boulder, so I can't offer any ideas there. We drove about 3 hours west of Denver, stopped to see Vail, stayed in Glenwood Springs. We stayed at the Hot Springs Lodge, which was lots of fun. We rented bikes and went on a bike ride through the canyon there (a 5 year old could do this). We went on a mild white water rafting excursion. My husband did the entire trip, while a van took me with our then 3 and 5 year old girls a couple of miles down river. After the rafts got through the worst of the rapids, they pulled over and we climed in! It was great. We took a day-trip from there to Aspen. Over all, it was great. There are tons of places to stay, all the ski resorts have fun stuff in the summer too! Enjoy!