Road Trip To Leadville With My Mom To See Fall Foliage, Soak in Hot Springs, and Ride Scenic Trains!

For my mom’s birthday this year, she decided to come to Colorado for a mother-daughter weekend with me. As soon as she booked her flights, I started planning things for us to do! 

I like when people come to visit, because it gives me an opportunity to do some of the more trendy things I see on social media that I normally wouldn’t do. (For example, check out the road trip my family went on the last time I mom came to town!) ​

With my mom coming to town for only a few days, I wanted us to have a full itinerary so that she could really see all of the highlights of the place I now call home! ​

The fun started as soon as I picked her up from Denver International Airport. Her plane landed around 10 a.m just in time for brunch! We drove straight to The Corner Beet to have some delicious toast and juices.

The Corner Beet in Denver.

Our different toasts from the Corner Beet,

​We split more toast than we could handle! For the two of us, we ordered The House, West, and Capitol. We sat outside and enjoyed the day and the toast while catching up with each other!

Check out their vegetarian menu here: https://cornerbeet.com/menu/

After brunch, we took some time to relax and get all dolled up for our most girly event of the weekend. Once we were ready, we drove to Boulder to visit the Dushanbe Tea House!

The Boulder Dushanbe Tea House.

Inside the tea house.

​We had reserved a table for the afternoon Dim Sum Tea and were treated to a wonderful three-course-meal! We had our fill of various pot stickers, sushi rolls, delicious desserts, and of course, lots and lots of tea.

The Dim Sum Tea is only featured once a month, so it was a very special afternoon. Then, we saw a wedding happening outside and the evening became even more dreamy! 

Taken after our afternoon Dim Sum tea.

You can read more about the tea house’s history and about each course, in this separate blog post, HERE!

Selfie while hiking Kenosha Pass!

​The next morning, we hit the road to start the road trip part of my mom’s visit. We left around 10 a.m. for our first mountain stop, Kenosha Pass, just outside of FairPlay!

​Kenosha Pass is one of Colorado’s most popular Fall “leaf peeping” places for good reason. Every Fall, its massive groves of aspen trees change from neon green to vibrant yellows and oranges before falling to the ground.

The view looking up at the trees.

More shots from Kenosha Pass!

​We hiked around and found a nice, uncrowded spot to set up a picnic where we could see the pond and all of the foliage around it. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the leaves were absolutely peaking. It was magnificent.

You can see more photos from our hike on Kenosha Pass, in this separate blog post, HERE and in the YouTube video below!

From the hike, we went the opposite way of the traffic and continued on toward Buena Vista. Our next destination was Mount Princeton Hot Spring to soak our sore feet!

We could not have planned or timed our arrival to Mount Princeton any better. We were waitlisted at first for the lower, historic pools before we went to the upper pools and walked straight in!

The historic bath house at Mount Princeton Hot Spring.

The new infinity pool is in the upper area.

The upper pools are home to the infinity pool and kid’s slide area and closes earlier than the rest of the resort.

​We had two hours to relax in the steaming waters before they closed, and right when we hoped out, we got a call for our spot at the lower pools! It was perfect!

​We hustled down to the lower area and parked ourselves in the piping, creekside pools next to Chalk Creek. My mom had never been to a hot spring before, and she kept going on about how she couldn’t believe how relaxed she was next to a river!

From one of the creekside spring pools!

If you want to read more about our entire 6-hour adventure testing out all the pools in the resort, checkout my Mount Princeton Hot Spring review HERE! 

When we finally decided to pry ourselves out of the pools, we grabbed a quick dinner in downtown Buena Vista at Simple Eatery. Then, we hit the road to our Airbnb in the historic mining town of Leadville!

We stayed at The Happy Hippie Tie Die House.

We had reserved a room for the night at the Happy Hippy Tie Dye House in downtown Leadville, and it was more than we could have ever expected in, let’s say, unique ways!

In true Colorado fashion, the house was extremely “4/20” friendly and welcomed smokers (which we weren’t) with open arms. It was all funny to us, and we both had a good night’s sleep without any ganja.
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If you would like to book your own stay at the Happy Hippy Tie Die House, use my link, HERE, for a discount!

The Airbnb was very 4/20 friendly.

We stayed in the "Orange Room".

Mural from inside the kitchen.

We woke up well-rested and walked to breakfast. We stumbled into The Golden Burro, and embarrassingly, we ordered the same meal: stuffed French toast with a cup of tea.

Walking around Leadville!

​We had our fill and needed to walk it off, so we wandered up and down the streets of historic Leadville popping in and out of shops and galleries. The day was beautiful, and the mountains were looming, with all their glory, in the background. ​

The view from outside the Airbnb.

​Eventually, we walked to the Leadville Railroad and boarded our reserved train ride up and around Prospect Mountain!

Boarding the Leadville Colorado & Southern Railroad!

View of the entire train from the tracks.

​The train ride was one of the highlights of our trip. The views of the fall foliage and the surrounding Mosquito and Sawatch Mountain Ranges, from the open-air car, were unbelievable. On top of the scenery, the tour guide gave us fun and interesting pieces of history.

The views were unbelievable!

We timed it perfectly with the fall leaves.

The entire train ride was cold and windy but wonderful and incredible. You can see more form our ride, in this separate blog post, HERE!

The train was the last planned thing on our itinerary, so we started to head back to Denver once we departed from the platform. We made some stops along the road home including one at Clinton Gulch Dam Reservoir!

Road side stop on the way home!

We made it home, and sadly, mom caught her flight back to Texas. We said our goodbyes and neither of us could get over how lovely the weekend had been. It had all fallen into place, the weather was perfect, and the fall leaves were at their peak.

​We couldn’t have asked for anything better!

​Similar Links:
Finding Colorado's Best Hot Springs - From Resorts to Backcountry Hikes
Family Road Trip Through Rocky Mountain National Park and Estes Park
Spending a Weekend In Crested Butte's Wildflowers