Have you been to Five Green Boxes on Pearl Street. I've put the link below. The street itself is a LOT of fun for shopping and having lunch. The two stores are SO cute. You'll find things you haven't seen elsewhere--and a lot of handmade things.
http://www.5greenboxes.com/
You might enjoy poking around the Vietnamese area--I think it is Alameda.
There is an H Mart I am saliivating about shopping at when we come in two weeks--and Asian market on steroids (in Denver and other parts of the country). I think it is in Aurora.
There is a new Trader Joe's. You see I'm stuck on shopping.
OH, you could go to the butterfly pavilion in Westminster. It IS fun.
have fun in Breck.

If you're interested in art, there is a Van Gogh exhibit at the Denver Art Museum that just opened on Saturday--you would need a timed ticket for admission--so call or go on line http://www.denverartmuseum.org/

The building itself is fantastic--and there are, of course, other exhibits.

There is a restaurant at the museum that is nice for lunch --I would suggest that you get reservations if you want to go there. http://www.ktrg.net/palettes/

Also about 2 blocks from the museum is Pint's Pub--great burgers and beer and other dishes. http://pintspub.com/

I'm not a Colorado person but we enjoyed a few hikes in Breckenridge.

Mohawk Lake--lovely vistas, waterfalls, lake and some ruins

McCullough Gulch--an old mining road--beautiful waterfall, good picnic stop on the boulders right before the waterfall, lake at the top.

Sapphire Pt. Overlook Trail-- a short walk to a lovely view

If you go to the Art Museum, definitely take in Palettes. It is a Kevin Taylor restaurant with truly remarkable food. I love the Native American exhibits at the Museum also. It is so good.

Let us know if the house is as wonderful as it looks.

Today feels like a book and coffee day, so The Tattered Cover might be a good place to spend some time.

www.tatteredcover.com/lower-downtown-store-historic-lodo

If you are in LoDo, I think a quick visit to Rockmount Ranch Wear www.rockmount.com is interesting for a look at Western fashion. I don't own any of their items, but I've enjoyed browsing.

I love a couple of the hikes LindainOhio recommends but I'm not sure how much snow is on the trails. Bring layers!

Thanks for all the suggestions. I've calmed down a bit. DS put some Paul Simon on Pandora (DW asked if it's the aging-parents channel on pandora) and it snowed last night and we slept pretty well (the air mattress didn't leak) and I fixed a kitchen drawer so I feel useful, something that gets harder the older your kids get. Garyt22 would ask about the helicopter.

Anyway, I will try to follow the suggestions. We'll go to the hardware store and the art museum. I'll try on-line tkts, but that's an extraordinary level of planning for us. Then we'll go get groceries, and before you know it'll be time to leave for Breckenridge, hiking, and waterfalls.

Gretchen, we followed your shopping suggestions last visit and had a nice lunch across the street from green boxes, but there are only so many things I can buy that I don't need. Last time I bought a wind-up walking ear and a wind-up walking nose.

Take your wife to the other one for lovely jewelry, scarves, etc.

Looks like you will have lots of snow. Why is this tagged as a trip report? Where is the report?

fmpden, it's an interactive trip report. You tell us what to do and we go do it and then report back. It's sorta like a video game, a rather slow moving RPG.

For example, gretchen and marty suggested the denver art museum, so that's what we did this morning. We were too cheap to spring for Van Gogh but I did sit down and look through a coffee table book. The guy clearly had skills.

We did go to the 4th floor and see a wonderful exhibit by an artist from Ghana with metal pieces sewn together like shimmering quilts. And a red dining room on the third floor filled with grey wolves. Lots of cool stuff. But we didn't eat at the restaurant because we wanted to have lunch with ds at Earls Sandwich Shop on Ogden near Colfax (even you Denverites probably don't know earl's, which claims to have an antique sideboard from the Savannah lawyer of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil).

Anyway, after lunch I used toggle bolts to fix ds's shower curtain holder and hung some hooks to encourage him to hang up his clothes. I did not have to do any plumbing work. Finally, after the doctor's appointment, we were able to leave for Breckenridge in the upgraded suv (the car rental clerk said we needed the suv rather than the economy fiat because it was snowing and my wife found that very convincing) and that's where where we are at this very moment. You're thinking it's taken us a long time to get here. Totally.

Tomorrow we will go look for Mohawk Lake, McCullough Gulch, and/or Sapphire Pt Overlook Trail. When we get back to Denver I'd like to look for the Tattered Cover.

The House is very nice. DS is enjoying wii. Netflix later. The outdoor hot tub is hot (duh), really wonderful, and looks out on a snowy hillside with tall spruce or fir or some other kind of big tall pine trees. I really don't know what they were. Travel writing is harder than it looks.

The house is nice, big, and has log lamps and log stairs but it could use some charm. A few nice little paintings, some photographs, dare I say a woman's touch? It's not the Blue Lake Ranch in Durango, but it's very good for us and I won't complain. VRBO is really a big deal, like GPS and wheels on suitcases.

Thanks again for your suggestions. Tomorrow I'll report something about Breckenridge so people won't complain too much about the title.

Here's info about the sculpture guy from Ghana.

http://artdaily.com/index.asp?int_new=57622&int_sec=11#.UInVEsXBHjU

Well, we had a nice dinner and strawberry rhubarb pie for desert and watched Margin Call (a very good movie with kevin spacey) on the gigantic tv and I'm telling you for once in your life you can go short on charm and long on stainless steel, granite countertops and free netflix. Rent the house.

OK, tomorrow I promise to write something useful.

santamonica, I love your "trip reports". So where is the house & where did you go to dinner? We need specifics! A walk on Main street in Breckenridge is always good entertainment, especially Clints bakery. If you have time in Denver you might check out the new Colorado History Museum. We have not been there yet but enjoyed the old one on school field trips. The Tattered Cover is an institution not to be missed, I have many fond memmories of it from the Cherry Creek days.

I hope your son is having a good experience. My daughter graduated from DU in 2011 & is adjusting to the working world. If you son needs a local contact, let me know. We live a ways out but have lived in Denver & have 3 "young adult" children.

We did the trail ride by Breckenridge--it was really beautiful. But likely the horses have been stabled for the winter if it's now snowing.

We also went to the Country Boy Mine which was a fun diversion but if you can hike instead, I'd choose that.

We really liked our meal at the brewpub at the south end of town. I checked Google maps just now and am pretty sure it was the Breckenridge Brewery.

Well, there's no way to put a pretty face on this. We didn't really do anything all that fascinating today. We took a steam bath, went in the hot tub, drove to town and went to the information center, had coffee and pastry at Clint's (the French Bakery was closed), drove around some, had lunch at the Breckenridge Brewery, went hiking at Sapphire Point, went to some dumb outlet center and then to walmart (I feel strongly that outlet centers are rips whereas walmart is a great place to shop),came home, walked around some, got back in the hot tub, and now I'm gonna fix dinner (chicken and sausage on the grill) while dw reads and ds works on lesson plans. Later, a movie.

This is not the stuff of a travel documentary, but it was really fun. The fresh snow on the trees this morning was great, and Sapphire Point is a beautiful place to walk. The Brewery had a very tasty soup and salad. Thanks everybody for the suggestions.

We've liked the house a lot, it's been hard to leave. It's in Blue River, about six minutes out of town.

Tomorrow it's back to Denver and the Tattered Cover.

On one of your forays to the mountains/Denver you should take up fly fishing. I take it Blue River is a community, but the Blue River is the little stream that flows by Silverthorne (and maybe this place) and is trophy trout water!! Also fishing right behind the Outlets in Silverthorne will get you some 24 inch trout!! Amazing.

Gretchen, I took fly casting for one of my phys ed credits at Penn State about 40 years ago so I'm ready to cast some flys in colorado. BetsyG, thanks for your offer of local support for ds. There have been days I've been sure he desperately needs it, but he seems to be doing ok at the moment.

We came back to Denver this morning, directly to the Tattered Cover where we had lunch, bought some stuff, and watched a gorilla parade. Then we came back to the apt, rested, and shopped at Whole Foods, where the clerk reminded me there are 5280 feet in a mile and that's why the local mag is 5280, for the mile high city. She also said there's a row of seats at the ball field painted a different color because they're exactly a mile above sea level. Ditto a step at the state capitol building, but she said they marked the wrong step.

She also said Cheesman Park was haunted so that's where we went next. We saw a lot of girls in fancy dresses in the park posing for quinceañera party pictures. Then we came home to fix dinner for DS and some of his teacher friends.

That's about it. Your suggestions were very helpful. We enjoyed the Denver Art Museum, Sapphire Point, Clints, Breckenridge Brewery, and the Tattered Cover Bookstore, and hopefully will get to more places on future visits. Thanks again.

Well, PA, Mich, and CO rank as great fly fishing areas. You can be at some great streams really easy from Denver. Shouldn't miss that!! What fun.

SM - just saw your post on the hurricane thread about being stuck in Denver & going to a mindfulness lecture. I think everyone else in Denver is watching the Broncos. Anyway, did you get to the Art Museum? or the Colorado History Museum? The Museum of Science & Nature was always a favorite with the kids but has adult appeal also (good pizza & salad bar). The weather should be very nice here this week so check out some of our wonderful parks, Washington, Cheesman. Hiking could be muddy but a drive to Red Rocks would be interesting. Colorado Springs has some sights to see also. And then there's the rest of the restaurants on your list. Enjoy your forced time in our fair city!

Our Denver granddaughter was supposed to leave for DC this morning on a class trip--50 8th graders!! It has been cancelled.
They did go to the Art museum for a while.Botanic Gardens is another possibility.
Missed his other thread.

See it now. Beautiful mountains!!??
It will take a while to sort out the airport especially going east. I had assumed "west" from the name.
It DOES give you an idea of the complexities of running airlines--the planes have to get TO somewhere in order to LEAVE for somewhere else!! Seems easy enough--until....

Sorry. I just looked up "mindfulness". VERY interesting--and pun intended, I hadn't thought of it that way!!
Have you been to the REI store.

Gretchen, I hope he is not at DIA trying to get home. It is a beautiful day here & would be a great day to go to the Botanic Gardens.

Maybe he'll check in!!

The rest of the week will be great also. If you don't have a schedule to met, good time to hang out here. DIA is becoming the parking lot for a lot of airplanes. Over 30 plans are just parked at Denver. The issue will be getting rested crews in to get the planes out. It is always a mess with the system break down.

Our New York son was trying to get back after a weekend in Oregon. Make it to Chicago with a confirmed reservation out on Tuesday evening provided the New York airports are open by then. Fortunately for him the markets are closed today and perhaps tomorrow.

I didn't want to burden you colorado travel advisors with having to come up with another day of suggestions for us. We found out yesterday morning at the airport our flight was canceled so we hopped the shuttle back to Advantage Rental car and got a chevy cruz for two days for $24 total, which is a pretty good deal.

Our son was very enthusiastic (willing) to have us around for another two days. So we did some laundry for him, a few more apt repairs (more toggle bolts), and went to a mindfulness lecture last night. Forty five minutes of silence to think about our breathing and trees falling on our house in maryland.

This morning DS was out the door at 6am and comes back this evening from a class at 8pm leaving him exhausted and us a day to explore. So we went to the Botanic Garden (beautiful and lots of benches to enjoy the sun) and to the History Museum (I went down the mine shaft elevator and the barn slide. I think the barn slide is intended for younger people but I had a good time).

Then we drove to Alameda and Federal to the T-Wa Inn and had a great Vietnamese lunch. Then we went a couple more blocks to Federal and Mississippi and wandered into a Vietnamese massage reflexology shop where you can get an hour massage in a chair/bed in a big dark room with 10 or 15 other people for $25 and it was, like they say, about as much fun as you can have with your clothes on. Feet, hands, head, back, arms, shoulders. You should definitely try this.

You can also buy cool stuff in shops near Federal and Mississippi, like a little green smiling buddha for $3.50, which will make a great gift for DS when combined with a gift certificate to the massage reflexology place.

So, again, that's about it. Your suggestions have exceeded all reasonable expectations for our denver sojourn. Tomorrow we try to leave again. This time we'll check the flight status before we leave for the airport.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/miracle-touch-denver

Errata: The rental house outside of Breckenridge was $187/night, not $137/night, but still a very nice house and a bargain I think.

That Viet area is SUPER. Better check the flight if it is east, as you say!!

If you are stuck again tomorrow you might check out Castle Rock & hiking in Castlewood Canyon although it could still be muddy. Did you get to Red Rocks? And there's always Cherry Creek & Cherry Creek North for shopping.

I am hoping you get home so add these for your list for next time.

I don't think you are going out tomorrow either. Son stuck in Chicago flight was just canceled for Tuesday evening and rebooked for Friday. So he is coming here and with a flight on Monday. DIA is becoming a parking lot for airplanes. Now up to 50. Wonder if they are collecting $7/day parking fees.

If you can ride a bike, rent a bike and ride the Platte River trail to the south. Still have the Mint, Molly Brown house, tea at Brown Palace hotel, or take the car to the Buffalo Bar or the TommyKnocker brewery in Idaho Springs. Take you son to the Fort (285, Morrison)for a special dinner.

We are back in Bethesda. Got up with DS at 5am; he worked on lesson plans and I worked on rescheduling the canceled flight which was supposed to leave at 10:45. Amazingly, United put us in the last two seats on a 10:56 flight direct to DCA, the first United flight to the re-opened airport. So we're home, the house is still standing, we have many happy memories of Breckenridge and Denver, and many of your excellent suggestions still to try. Thanks.

Glad you made it home & all is well there. Let us know when you will be back!

I've discovered the gorilla parade we saw was a benefit run for mountain gorillas.

http://www.denvergorillarun.com/