Day 8: Rocky Mountain High

John Denver wasn’t kidding around: There’s something about being in the Rockies that makes you positively giddy. Sure, it could be the altitude, but we think there’s way more to it than that. Take our day, for example. We started off with a trail run with our friend (and master trail runner) Lisa on the Sanitas trail, in Boulder. It’s impossible to be in a bad mood when you’re running on something like this:

This beats the treadmill any day.

And getting views like this:

Even non-runners (read: Beth) could learn to love running on trails with views like this.

From there, it was on to ten20 to meet up with our host Heather. It’s official: This is our new favorite nail and waxing spa.

See that big screen on the right? The spa shows its favorite female-focused movies on Chick Flick Wednesdays.

In addition to cushy pedicure seats and free M&Ms (seriously!), there’s a fun retail area full of cool finds like sleepwear by P.J. Salvage, Havaianas in every color in the rainbow, and locally made spa products.

See those adorable pails on the top shelf on the left? We couldn't resist them. Lindsey bought the flowered one and Beth got the green patterned one.

Heather suggested a quick coffee at Tee & Cakes before we headed out of town, and (as usual), her recommendation was spot on. This place was incredible! The cupcakes are gorgeous, and they come in cool flavors like Chocolate Bacon, Coca-Cola, and Strawberry Milkshake.

Try resisting these babies.

Let’s not talk about how many we ate, or whether cupcakes are an acceptable breakfast. It’s not important. Let’s also not dig too deeply into our theory that the Chocolate Zucchini Whoopie Pie we shared was almost like eating vegetables. Again, not important.

Co-owner Kim Boos (left) and Heather present the most nutritional part of our breakfast, a Chocolate Zucchini Whoopie Pie.

We redeemed our breakfast with a stop at Whole Foods, where we picked up a couple of sandwiches and fruit for lunch. From there, we headed for Beaver Creek, a two-hour drive that was easily the most gorgeous of this entire trip so far. Even more gorgeous than the drive: The view from our room at Beaver Creek’s Pines Lodge:

Seriously, this is what we see when we look out our window.

We popped into the Hiking Center just in time to catch the director, Nate Goldberg, who gave us the lowdown on the trillion trails we could follow on our early-morning hike tomorrow. We’ll only have time for a short one, but we’ve vowed that next time we’re going to join him on what they call a “14′er”—a full-day hike up one of the state’s 14,000-foot peaks.

The more we walked around Beaver Creek, the more we realized we need so much more than one day and one night. You could be here for a week and still not get to all the activities this place offers—especially if your stay falls on a Friday in the summer, when they have Fridays at the Park, with tons of family-friendly activities. We decided to leave the bungee trampoline and mini-golf to the kids, but we couldn’t resist a little bocce:

Nice form, Lindsey!

And there was no way we were skipping the s’mores fire pit:

Beth Collins: Master marshmallow roaster.

From there, it was onto dinner at Toscanini (yum!), and back to the hotel to rest up for tomorrow’s hike and—even better—our spa treatments. We have a feeling this Rocky Mountain High is going to last a long, long time.