Longmont, Boulder, Westminster, Denver

Have you caught Part 1 of this adventure yet?
Our route to Westminster was blocked due to wildfires. Surprise, surprise.

Chimney Rock!

Thankfully, the detour we gook gave us a chance to stop at Chimney Rock, which I am familiar with as a stop on the Oregon Trail. Long story short, after a far-too-long-and-boring car ride, we made it safely to our (swanky) hotel in Westminster. Unfortunately, our hotel royally screwed up and only gave us one bed instead of two (there are four of us.) Thank God Brenna was only 20 minutes away in Denver, because she came and saved our tired hinds from sleeping on the floor at the Westin Westminster.
I quickly became acquainted with Jake, the happy golden dog Brenna was watching for her aunt. We stayed up late talking, discussing our past month where we had hardly spent any time together. The next day was a busy one: The day of my Economics final, the wedding, and beginning my birthday!
I finished my final in two hours, and finished the class with an 87%. Becca and Brenna went on a few errands to walk Jake, visit the farmer's market, and  After my two lowest quiz grades were dropped, I had an A, which constituted a reason to party! But by then, I was out of time to party.

Me, Jen, Mom and Dad

Brenna drove Becca and I back to Westminster where we got ready for the wedding, which was absolutely beautiful. The garden was green, the sky was moderately clear with no threat of rain, Jen was beautiful, and the DJ was on top of the musical game.
After the wedding, Becca and I went back to Longmont with Brenna to start celebrating my birthday! We stayed up extremely late playing Apples to Apples (over 100 rounds!) and slept in rather late the next morning.
For my birthday, we went to Boulder, the "college town" of Colorado. It was absolutely and spectacularly beautiful. We first headed to Chataqua, where we walked around the many old houses that are available for summer rent. After we walked up and down the hilly blocks for a while, we piled back into Brenna's aunt's Jeep and headed downtown in search of Snooze, a breakfast place.
As luck would have it, we found a parking space right across from Snooze, and walked in the door forty-five minutes before they were supposed to close. 2:15 in the afternoon is not too late to have breakfast!

Chataqua is really green.

After eyeing their extensive pancake menu as well as their lovely healthy menu, Brenna and I decided to split a pancake flight and a basic egg, hash brown and toast dish. Our three pancake types were a pineapple upside down pancake, a toffee nut pancake, and a sweet potato pancake. While delicious, the pancakes were almost too sweet, so it's good that we ordered eggs and hash browns to go with them.
After my birthday brunch (yay!) we walked around Pearl Street, looking at local hand-made shops, book stores, toy stores, shoe stores, clothing stores--you name it. We eventually ended up at the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse, which was actually built in Tajikistan and shipped to Boulder, where it was re-built in all of it's intricate glory. Each of us ordered a pot of tea, and we traded sips of each other's tea. I really enjoyed my panda green tea, partially because it had my nickname in it's title, and also because I really enjoy green tea.

That's my obnoxious face.

Soon, my parents came to take Becca and me to dinner, while Brenna returned to Longmont to pack for her return to Arizona. I picked out an Indian restaurant named Yak and Yeti (sweet name, I know) to feast at on my birthday. Sad thing is, I wasn't very hungry. But then I realized "Hmm. Indian food. I like Indian food. Eating when I'm not hungry this one time won't kill me." And boy, am I glad I did that. We ate from the buffet filled with masala and palak paneer and all sorts of other things I can neither remember, pronounce or spell. All I remember is that they were delicious.
We headed back to the hotel, where Becca and I had an amazing view of the Flatirons and the pending thunder storm out of the window. The Westin had made up for their former mistake by switching my parents to a similar room on another floor and gave them an adjoining room with two double beds for free. My birthday ended with a beautiful thunder storm, driving in the rain to pick up Brenna, and then cupcakes and a card stuffed with gift cards (and a $20 bill for Zia) from my parents.

We left early the next morning for Pinetop, and decided late in the afternoon (when we were at the Arizona-New Mexico border) to drive straight through to Phoenix. I drove a large amount of the way, and when I wasn't driving, I was listening to This American Life with Brenna and Becca, or reading The Scientists: A Love Story by Marco Roth.