Valentine's Day in LOVEland, Colorado

My parents came up for a visit last week and we spent part of the time just chilling and some of the time being tourists.  I showed them around Parker, showed them the area around where Mark lived before we moved into the house, and went to Golden to the Coors brewery.  Mom and Dad have traveled around here for years and in fact my Dad was in the service and spent 2 years in this area.  Of course so much has changed since he was here but it was fun to listen to the stories he told about his adventures.  But they had never taken the tour of the Coors brewery so since Mark had a half-day at work on Friday, we drove downtown and picked him up and headed West.

We got there a little after lunchtime so of course we had to stop and get something to eat!  We found a great pizza place called Woody's to eat at.  

After we finished our meal we headed over to the brewery and took a quick tour. The tasting room is always full but since it was a Friday afternoon the place was packed with the college students who go there for their 3 free beers!  What a way to kick off the weekend, huh?

Friday night we had made reservations to celebrate Valentine's Day early to avoid the crowds on Saturday.  Mom and Dad said Greek food sounded good to them so we took them to Yanni's.  We had a great meal, great service and great company.  

Mark has been under the weather with a sinus infection these past few weeks so some of the plans that we had made to go sight-seeing were put on hold.  One of the things we had planned on doing was going to the International Ice Sculpting contest in Breckenridge, CO.  Unfortunately, the weekends that were open to the public were the two weekends that Mark felt the worst so we didn't make it this year. But I happened to find out that Loveland, Co was having their annual ice sculpting contest on Saturday so we all made the hour trip North to see what it was all about.  

Loveland put on a very nice festival.  The sculptors had been busy by the time we got there so we only saw mostly finished work but a few were still doing their finishing touches on their creations. It was fun to see how they took an 8-9 foot block of compacted snow and turned it into art. Here are some of our favorites.

They had regular judges that evaluated the work but they also let the public vote on their favorite sculpture.  We liked the gargoyle looking one and it actually won 1st place for the People's Choice award.

In the middle of this little bitty town in Colorado we found a pretty danged good Cajun food restaurant. It was mid-afternoon and we were all a little hungry and thirsty so we we went in and had cups of gumbo, beer and beignets.  All super yum-O!

The festival also had street vendors, food trucks, bands, a lighted parade,  and fireworks at dusk.  They also lit the sculptures up after dark.  We had already left by the time they did the parade, the fireworks and had put the lights on the sculptures but I found some pictures online that show how pretty they are after dark.

After a great day we were rewarded with one of the most amazing sunsets we have seen in a long time. It was the perfect ending to a perfect day spent with the ones that I love (minus Henley and Delaney).