Just Lauren

This past weekend was truly a great weekend. Saturday morning my friend, Robyn, drove us to the City Park Farmer’s Market where I got vegan breakfast at Wong Way Veg and then proceeded to eye the vegan biscuits over at The Easy Vegan (I’m really hoping they offer the meal next time I go!). Turns out, this farmer’s market is incredibly vegan friendly. I even got myself a vegan donut from Pandemic Donuts. The fact that there were at least three, if not more, 100% vegan booths or food trucks made this farmer’s market my favorite in Denver. There were lots of other neat booths too – kimchi, jams, flowers (although the bouquet was $25). I tried not too look too hard because I was attempting to spend as little as money as possible. But needless to say I will be going back to the market in a couple weeks and at that time I will meander a little more slowly. I really enjoyed spending time with Robyn as we walked around, ate some food, and then sat under a tree in he shade and people watched a bit while discussing the crazy real estate world that is Colorado. We watched a kid wearing underwear on his face pass by and we met an adorable mutt named Pepperjack (PJ for short). I had a blast.

After saying goodbye to Robyn I came home and made homemade strawberry jam because Sprouts is having a great sale on strawberries. So hopefully I’m stocked up on jam for a while. I went to the pool with Shari later that afternoon because it was hot and who knows how much longer the pool will stay open. Cooler mornings and evenings are slowly making their way to us which means the pool season is coming to an end. Gotta get one or two more visits in while I can!

On Sunday, Shari and I went to the Affordable Arts Festival. You’ll have to wait until this week’s What I like Wednesday to hear more about it, but, for now, know that I liked it. 😉 After the festival we picked up Elisabeth and went to Dang, a soft serve ice cream place. Sunday was a celebration of Shari’s birthday with Shari and our friends which meant we had to go to a couple of ice cream places. I mean, it’s a given. So we started out at Dang because of Elisabeth’s recommendation. And what a great recommendation it was. I got their two non-dairy flavors (one flavor had honey so it’s debatable if it’s vegan or not) and let me tell you, their chocolate ganache soft serve was to die for. I loved it. I would get that again every time as long as they carry it. They always have two vegan flavors too which makes them a great choice for me. Dang also serves french fries so I got an order for us to share because having some salty goodness in between licks of sweet coolness is definitely the way to go.

From Dang, we headed to Fairmount Cemetery to walk off some of the soft serve calories so we could get more ice cream in our bodies shortly thereafter. For the first time, we went into the giant mausoleum building, where the majority of cremated remains are stored. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a mausoleum before and it was something. There was soft, almost ethereal music playing as we entered but I couldn’t tell where it originated. I saw only one person, and she was a couple of hallways down. I glanced at her briefly and when I turned back to see if she was still there, nothing. Could she have been a ghost, looking for her body or her ashes? How long has she wandered those marble halls under the muted light cast by the many stained glass windows? The windows themselves, while all unique, blend together and it’s easy to loose your bearings. It was a sobering and somber experience walking around that building. Being surrounded by death has a way of reminding you how quickly a life comes and goes in the universe’s expansion.

It almost felt like time had paused while we stepped within that mausoleum, and when I took those first steps back into the afternoon light I shook off this eerie feeling of death and breathed a little easier.

We went to Sweet Action Ice Cream after that where I got some extremely tasty vegan carob granola. I think it’s the best vegan ice cream flavor I’ve had thus far and you know Sweet Action’s vegan ice cream is already the best so you can just imagine how tasty this one was. To top it off, they were giving out free temporary tattoos too so now I have a tiny ice cream cone tattoo to put on my arm at some point. Score!

We said goodbye to Elisabeth after that as she had plans, and Shari and I went to a nearby mini golf course. We met up with our friends and played a round. I was with people I enjoyed, we were all around the same skill level, and Shari has a really great scoring method (if you don’t get the ball in within 5 hits, you get a score of 5 and nothing higher) that I think this might have been the most fun and relaxing game of mini golf I’ve ever played as an adult. And the course was pretty dang crappy! It was clear that the golf course staff did not keep it up. I mean, like, they don’t even go over there. I probably wouldn’t go back there unless it was convenient but I don’t regret going there yesterday.

With mini golf ended the whole party made our way to Bull and Bush for dinner. I’m not sure I could have ended the evening any better. I got to chat more with my friends and eat a delicious peanut butter and jelly burger. Um, who knew that was a fantastic combo? Go try it next time you make a burger because I don’t think you’ll regret it. Creamy peanut butter and chunky grape jelly. This will be a new combo for me so I am appreciative to Bull and Bush for introducing me to it. It should be noted, however, that they no longer separate bills for large groups so plan ahead if you’re going with more than one person.

I slept really well last night and ended my weekend feeling happy and ready to face the new week. I hope the same for all of you!