Colorado: home to the Rocky Mountains, Mile High Stadium, and some of the most beautiful land the United States of America has to offer. But is it the most popular 4th of July destination? For us, the answer is yes!
When we were coming up with ideas for our 4th of July post, we thought we would each write about our favorite Independence Day travel memories. Come to find out, both of our favorite memories happened in the great state of Colorado!
While this year’s 4th may look different, we hope you enjoy rehashing our favorite 4th of July trips and find inspiration for your next trip to Colorado.
Katie’s Blast in Boulder
Last year, my husband and I headed to Colorado for Independence Day weekend. We arrived on the evening of July 3rd and stayed with our friend Liz in Boulder. We spent the 4th bopping around the city, hitting up Boulder must-dos like…
- The Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse. This teahouse is a gift from Boulder’s sister city of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, and was a great brunch spot to kick off our day.
- Trident Booksellers & Cafe. An independent bookstore with a great selection of coffee and tea that powered us through our adventures.
- The Sink. This family-owned restaurant and bar made for the perfect meal before we headed over to campus for fireworks. Definitely get a burger!
We also swung by a dispensary while there. When in Colorado… 😉 We finished out the 4th with Ralphie’s Independence Day Blast, an annual fireworks event at Folsom Field, the University of Colorado’s football stadium. While we spent the rest of the weekend hiking off all the food we’d eaten that day – fortunately, Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre is an easy drive from Boulder – we couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend the 4th of July.
Megan’s Fireworks in the Mountains
For anyone who doesn’t know me from childhood or college, you are probably not aware of how big of an impact softball has had on my life. From ages 8 to 22, it consumed every summer for me, whether that meant playing tournaments all over Florida every weekend or traveling the country playing some of the best competition there was. Softball provided me a lot of things – mainly a free college education – but it also provided me some once-in-a-lifetime trips, like the multiple Independence Days I spent in Colorado.
Every summer, right around the 4th of July, is one of the biggest softball tournaments in the country. Thousands of teams descend into the greater Denver area for a week’s worth of highly competitive softball. Although most of our time was consumed with up to five games per day, our coaches always made it a priority to have a little fun.
For most of these trips, parents did not attend, so it was 20 high school students and a couple coaches packed into two vans, road tripping up and down the Rocky Mountains. Specifically, I remember one summer we had the day off on the 4th of July, and our coach decided to take us white water rafting – a must-do when visiting Colorado. We drove up to Idaho Springs to meet our guides at Liquid Descent Rafting Company. I highly recommend this rafting company. The tour guides are so fun and will make your trip extremely memorable (Make sure to ask to ride the bull!).
After rafting, it was always a tradition to stop at Beau Jo’s for some mountain pies. I highly recommend acting like a local and dipping your crust in honey; trust me, your life will be forever changed. After eating so much we were convinced we wouldn’t be able to run the bases at our next game, we worked off the meal by shopping in Idaho Springs’ local boutiques before heading back into Denver.
Colorado holds so many memories and so many firsts for me. I cherish every memory I have of getting to travel the country with some of my lifelong friends and teammates. However, since we’re focused on the 4th of July, I do need to mention my absolute favorite memory of our July summers in Colorado.
After the most perfect day of making memories with my team, we drove down the mountain back to Denver to witness all the firework shows going on below. It was probably one of the coolest things I have seen. Fireworks were shooting off from at least 10 different locations, and we had the perfect view to catch it all. Another memory to last a lifetime.
