Denver, CO: Illegal Pete's, Wash Park, Little Man Ice Cream

Exhausted from our Bierstadt hike, we slept in the next day and took it easy. Bryan had about a million food-related things to introduce us to (we had eaten at Vine St Pub & Brewery the night before), so we continued to eat more than we have on any other vacation. The day was beautiful, so Bryan wanted to have a picnic at Wash Park, a huge park (with two lakes) in the middle of Denver. We stopped by Illegal Pete's (next to the original Chipotle location) and picked up some burritos. I had something called a Steak Primavera, which was like a fajita in a burrito (lots of veggies instead of beans). It was really good.

Once we had consumed our burritos, we enjoyed the afternoon at the park. All of us play(ed) frisbee at some point in our lives, so it's common to toss a disc around to while away the day. At some point that wears out, though, and the next best thing is to terrorize squirrels. (He didn't actually hit any squirrels, but this picture is pretty dang awesome.)

While at the park, Bryan made the fatal mistake of casually mentioning "ice cream" in my presence. Hot and still sore from the hike, he wanted us to try out Little Man Ice Cream while we were in town, so off we went. The clouds were starting to look menacing, but we tried to ignore them. It started raining while we were looking for a parking spot (several blocks away). We hurried to the ice cream stand (it's outdoors only) and tried several flavors before picking out some very tasty scoops. I had something called the Space Junkey, which had chocolate, raspberry, marshmallows, and I don't know what else, but it was really good. 

While we were in line, it had started pouring. We got our ice cream and ran under an umbrella. Eric looks thrilled. Unfortunately these were literally the only pictures I got of our ice cream adventure, because then it started hailing.

Not just a little bit of hail. It was pouring hail. The ground turned white with it while the rain continued to pour buckets on our heads and shoes.

It was a liiitle bit crazy. The things we do for ice cream. Bryan insisted it was a good story, but we were freezing cold (while eating ice cream...and after having been quite hot earlier in the day) and soaking wet. Eventually we took cover in a beauty salon and Eric braved the storm to get the car and pick us up.

We meant to go back because Bryan wanted us to try a particular flavor, Salted Oreo, that they didn't have that day (they change available flavors every day), but we didn't have a chance, unfortunately (I thought their ice cream was really good, so I would have not complained if we had returned).

It was quite the experience. Hopefully no one else (besides the other people in line with us that day) have to deal with any kind of crazy pop-up hail storm while trying to eat ice cream. Little Man Ice Cream is really popular, usually with a line very very long, so be prepared to wait (or go at a weird time) to get some tasty dessert.