Exploring Pueblo, Colorado! A Hidden Gem in the High Desert

Hello friends welcome to Lug life and welcome to Pueblo Colorado this is where my mom lives a number of years ago my mom left Alaska and she sort of went looking for the place that she wanted to call home uh she went to Florida she went all over the U.S and I remember she called me one day and basically said I found that I found where I want to live and I thought great amazing where is it and she said Pueblo Colorado and I said what where like I had heard of Pueblo but I literally knew nothing at all about Pueblo so what do I do I go to Google I type in Pueblo Colorado and to be honest the things that I found at first like didn't get me stoked this is where my mom wanted to live I read articles about high crime I read about it being like an old steel mill town and like how the town had kind of gone into decline since the mill had left um just a lot of things like that and then I would talk to friends of mine who live in or have lived in Colorado and told them my mom was moving to Pueblo and I wasn't more encouraged by what they would say they would be like why of all the places why and so there's this stigma around this town um this sort of exists for a lot of people and so the first time I came to Pueblo to visit my mom I came here with those things in my mind the problem is that like that's not what I've experienced and I've been here a number of times now and every time I come to Pueblo I like it more and more um now I wanted to do on this trip a lot of you guys know I'm here visiting my mom she's having a bunch of health issues uh right in the middle of kind of her cancer battle and one of the things I wanted to do while I was here um I wanted to take time while mom is napping and resting and I wanted to show you Pueblo through my eyes because this is a town that I have grown to absolutely love I feel like it's up and coming I feel like it has so many things about it that are just so unique and so cool for a talented size now I know like every city anywhere there are bad parts there's bad history there are bad stories there are of course things that are not ideal but for me I actually think this is a really great town and I just you guys know that I love showing you places maybe the people don't always go I loved vlogging places like Detroit Michigan I loved vlogging places like Cincinnati Ohio I love when I visited Dayton Ohio just towns that don't always I don't know how's the kind of get looked over and I feel like Pueblo is one of those uh it's a great little town and I in this Vlog just want to take you around to some of the things that I love about Pueblo [Music] maybe my favorite place in all of Pueblo is the downtown area and this is the Union Depot right here sort of on the edge of downtown as you can see lots of old historic brick buildings which I absolutely love there are a bunch of restaurants down over there I'll show you more a little bit of downtown later but just look how look how cute this is and one of the things that I really like about Pueblo is that it gets like 300 days of sunshine a year now today kind of cloudy but you can see some blue skies right over here and I'll say almost every trip that I have had here I've had amazing weather now when you think of Colorado or at least when I thought of Colorado I always thought about mountains and ski resorts that kind of thing Pueblo is about 45 minutes south of Colorado Springs Pueblo is more like high desert and so it tends at least to me to feel more New Mexico than what I perceive of Colorado so it is yeah High Desert warm gets real hot in the summertime um I love it now it's still morning and before we get too far into the Vlog I need to start my day the way that most days when I visit Pueblo start right here at Gypsy Javas it is such a cool coffee shop I love the way they use this old piano kind of as the uh bar with all of the cream sugar lids and stuff very cool nice little seating areas you have a bunch of tables back here and they actually have like a little elevated seating area back over there too okay coffees check now we can get our day started now my mom lives in What's called the Mesa Junction part of Pueblo and it's a beautiful neighborhood one of the things I love are the really wide streets all of the Big Trees but there are also some unbelievably older and beautiful homes in this neighborhood I mean look at that just feels very I don't know historic throwback oh my gosh I absolutely love it there's also one thing that we don't get in Alaska are brick homes I think because of the weather and all that um but I just are you kidding me look at that home with like the ivy there up the round part ah so now I'm out here at another one of my favorite places in Pueblo this is the Lake Pueblo State Park out here at the reservoir and it is it's beautiful I remember the first time I ever came to Pueblo my mom brought us out here it's a huge Recreation Area they have everything from camping to boating there's lots of hiking trails around here there's like an archery range there's just so much stuff to do around here uh it's really pretty let me show you so this is the view from The Visitor Center uh you can see there's like a little Harbor down here with a bunch of boats and then you have the the reservoir like all over in here and I think I can drive I think over there is where we went and you actually get like to the top of that bluff so I'm going to try to figure out how to get up there again I have a couple signs here at the visitor center about different birds to be on the lookout for you can see they have bald eagles Hawks and then over here lots of different butterflies and uh and then bees also that looks like a horrible thing to fall into can you imagine she's like tripping and falling into that no thank you now I'm here in the gift shop at the visitor center you can see all sorts of Lake Pueblo stickers they've got hats and shirts and all sorts of stuff I love that they also sell of course camping stuff fire starters s'more kits so this is actually my first time here in The Visitor Center um when he came out here before we went to the other side of the lake so I'm glad I'm getting to see this also a snake plush absolutely not absolutely not although you guys kind of like in the hats all right so I'm leaving the visitor center for the second time um this is hilarious I left maybe 10 or 15 minutes ago and I got to the next place and I pulled out the camera to Vlog and I thought I don't have my camera I set it down when I was buying my hat and I never picked it back up so I'd come back I'd come back to the visitor center get the camera now all right guys ah now we can go to the next spot you can see we have a bit of a storm rolling through uh for a town that gets 300 days of sunshine a year this is uh not something I have seen a lot of in my visits to Pueblo over here on the right you can see the Pueblo Dam I was looking online and it said over 2 billion pounds of concrete was used in the building of this it was built in the 1970s uh it's here on the Arkansas River and that is pretty damn cool did you guys see what I did there with the uh with my joke there are certain areas of the park that you can visit without having to pass but where I'm driving to now I had to stop and buy one so it was ten dollars for a day pass to kind of drive through the area uh wanted to do that because there's some things that I want to try to go see while we're here um if I lived here I for sure would have like a Parks pass without a doubt and you can tell most people coming in here we're going down the side of the uh kind of the welcome Booth where they already had passes so I paid my ten dollars now let's keep driving so now we're kind of on the other side um The Visitor Center was right over there where we were earlier you can see there's a few people in boats out on the water got some people down here as well fishing I think there's actually a trail like right over here like a paved path let's uh let's go walk that way a little bit sometimes Pueblo can be really hot when I visit uh today for this Alaskan feels amazing it's funny though because I've seen a few people out here in like not necessarily like winter clothes but you can tell that they are not warm whereas for me there's like a bit of a light Breeze and it's just ah it feels so nice to be outside all right we're back on the road continuing our drive through the park this is one of the reasons I love this area out here by the reservoir just the just the rock formations up there it's just so different than what I'm used to seeing in Alaska I've done my exploring here around the state park had a on a day that has been weird like there's blue stain um it's beautiful to get out and drive I love seeing the rock formations as I said you can see back here at the dam however it is lunch time and you guys I'm hungry now Pueblo actually has some pretty good food I've had some great meals here I've had really great Indian food um my gosh I've had some unbelievable Mexican food here however I don't feel like I could do a Pueblo video without having the meal that probably Pueblo is most known for let's go get a slopper you might be saying Adam the slopper doesn't sound very appetizing that's not the most appetizing name and you're correct it also does not look like like the most appetizing meal uh it is not a visually attractive meal I'll say that basically what a slopper is it is an open face Burger topped with Pueblo green chilies cheese and onions oh my gosh it is it is so delicious uh green chilies are part of the heartbeat of Pueblo I have learned you can get green chilies on almost everything breakfast in the morning lunches dinners there's even a place that has like a green chili mocha they have green chili beer which I'll probably show you later this Vlog um and they are amazing when I visit I cannot get enough Pueblo green chilies and so that is like the thing that makes the slopper is the green chilies now it's served in lots of places here in Pueblo not everybody agrees on where it started some say it started a place called Gray's Coors Tavern some people say that it started a place called Star Bar I'm actually a star bar right now it's where I'm going to have the burger today I've never been here I've never had theirs I think Grays is probably the more popular of the places in town they are closed today that's why I'm not there uh so I'm excited to go in have some lunch and show you what the heck a slobber is all right here's what star bar looks like you can see we have the food menu right here and right there for 1325 is the slopper you know that's what we're getting so I have ordered my slopper and you gotta love a bar where they come around and give you candy definitely my kind of place all right so while I'm waiting for my lunch I found this news article from earlier this year of Pueblo slopper tour and number one was Grace tour uh I'm sorry uh Gray's Coors Tavern number two Sunset number three here is Star Bar all right food has been delivered there is my slopper like I said it is not the most appetizing looking meal but I'm so excited she asked me if I wanted my fries on top of the burger and covered with chilies or on the side I said on the side she'd like to have to cover them with chili and I said of course it looks amazing all right here we go Star Bar slopper bite number one [Music] well they took my plate and I completely finished it it was amazing also this place is the best a lady came by and was like uh do you want a cupcake what yes always yes oh my goodness um I've probably had five or six sloppers since my mom moved to Pueblo that was hmm if not the best top two probably that I've had and what I love about it is the the whole setting fit the slopper the thing I love about the slopper is there's like no pretense it's not trying to be anything that it's not it is a burger covered in delicious green chili that's it and this was just like it had that great Dive Bar kind of feel it was a barber top pretense a meal without pretense that was perfect the sun is continuing to peek through the clouds and now I want to take you to what I think might be my favorite part of Pueblo let's go downtown and check out the Riverwalk here we are on the Arkansas River right here in Downtown Pueblo and this is an area that has been built up and developed in honestly just like a really amazing way it goes all through like that way we're gonna go walk it and see it it's green it's beautiful let's go check it out you can see now we're down here by the water there's a path on both sides of the river lots of families out today and what I love is that they've not developed they haven't built like buildings all the way up to the river you'll see kind of up here there's more development but there's lots of green space out here it still feels very very park-like which I love you can see the river actually splits off that way so what I'm planning on doing is walking up one side of the Riverwalk and then walking back into the car on the other side hi gooses it's times like this in places like this where I just don't understand why Pueblo doesn't get more love um this is like a cool downtown area there's not a lot of cities that have a great space like this right in the downtown now you can see we're coming into part of the area where there's more development there is just all sorts of stuff there's restaurants with seating right out here by the river there is like a waterfall water feature up there they have like a little Fountain Splash Pad area there's some kids playing in this is the center for American values um one of the things that's actually kind of interesting about Pueblo is that they've had I think it's four like Medal of Honor winners here and so Pueblo is a city with just a lot of patriotism and this year right on the Riverwalk in downtown I bet you didn't expect to see gondolas in Pueblo Colorado did you so they have this they have these boats up here and they do these Little River Walk tours just little rides up and down uh the whole Riverwalk area and I think that is so cool in fact I was down here I think yesterday and I saw one of the boats just uh going up the river so this is where you would kind of loop back around and go to the other side which I'm going to do however I want to cross over to the street or cross over the street and just kind of show you what's over here because over here you've got this little like open lagoon area uh look at this you can run paddle boats you can rent those floating ducks what it is just so cool also the sunshine feels amazing now let's cross back over the street and walk back down the other side all right so here's what it looks like where you kind of turn around and go to the other side you see there's those boats down there let's head this way look how fun these statues are you can see there's kids playing basketball kids playing baseball another basketball one over here then we have one more on this side and I believe I'm not positive I think this building right behind me is the world headquarters for PBR not Pabst Blue Ribbon uh professional bull riding or the Pro Bowl writing whatever that is you know the rodeo bulls that kind of stuff uh it's based here in Pueblo which I did not know until my mom moved here and I think that's their building not positive well now I'm pretty positive oh Professional Bull Riders that was close holy cow you guys look at those clouds those don't look fun but I'm still in the sunshine over here and then right over here we have I think this is the Brews Ale House my brother and I ate here uh when we were here last month and it was really really great also what a nice location out here on the water now we could cut over this bridge and kind of cut out all of this part but I'm kind of loving walking so let's uh keep you in the lab I love this mural says we are in this together and then down there we are in this together and then the middle says what you say to someone with depression can change everything look how beautiful this statue is we might have shown this on a previous Pueblo vlog but it is amazing so you have the blanket on the back my favorite part of this though is you can see the detail for like all of the bead work so one of the things I like about Pueblo especially the Riverwalk area there's just a lot of art there's a lot of statues it's just it's a visually beautiful place and that does kind of continue around a lot of Pueblo one of the things I'll show you still is that they have a lot of a lot of great murals there's just there are so many and so I'll show you a few of them before the end of the Vlog and just like that we are done I think the Riverwalk is under a mile and a half Loop um perfect it's so great what a fun place just to come and walk if I lived here I feel like that would be my like walking place it's just so nice everybody was so friendly um I don't know if you guys noticed any of the videos but like no trash almost anywhere it's very very clean very well done I love the Riverwalk now let's go explore a little bit more of downtown all right so this is kind of my favorite area of like I don't even know if it's considered Downtown Pueblo but basically there are all sorts of antique stores and coffee shops look at this there's like a little organic plant store down here they have the Gold Dust Saloon also those clouds from that storm kind of chasing me and um I'm hearing thunder and lightning but I want to get the Vlog done first this is another great place to event a couple times it's the bite me cake company they've got like pinball machines and it's a bakery and they've got some like beer and stuff a bakery with beer and pinball what more could you want and you might be noticing a lot of the places downtown are closed and say Adam Pueblo doesn't look like it's very happening well it is Sunday and it is Mother's Day and there's a lot of things that are closed for today I think a lot of moms like my mom home resting so it is more quiet than I'm used to seeing it here's some of those murals I was telling you about and they exist all through downtown I love a big sunflower though and there is a part of Pueblo that I want to show you but I can't show you right now I mean I could but it is so much more impressive in night time it's called neon alley it was actually one of the first things my mom took me to here in Pueblo and I remember thinking what town am I in it is it's amazing we'll go there later tonight this is fun it's a new area that's going to be opening up soon I think you can see they have different um just like different food trailers they've got picnic tables property is yeah food truck property now Leasing I think that is such a cool idea when that opens up definitely want to go check it out also or cool artwork the next place we're gonna go is a place I have not been it actually just opened I think within the last month it's called the fuel and iron Food Hall basically what they did is they took an older building a historic building here in Pueblo and completely remodeled it into something that is very new for this town I've heard great things it looks super cool on Instagram it's right up here let's go check it out more proof that you never know what you're gonna see okay this is super cool so what they have are different like food vendors all around the outside you can see there's a Ramen place over here there's steel Crescent kitchen there are several of them but then over here in the middle is a cocktail bar up front is Solar Roast coffee they have lots of tables so you can get your food from any of the food vendors get a cocktail get coffee grab a place to sit and then you can see they also have an area you can sit outside on nice days so there's the food hall building it was way better even than I expected they had a hot chicken restaurant a ramen restaurant there was like a Mexican restaurant there was I think one that sold like bison burgers and stuff I don't remember what else there was coffee the cocktail lounge in fact I would have stopped and got a cocktail there however um there's another drink I want to have here in Pueblo today so I'm not gonna drink there because I want to go to my favorite Brewery in town but as we walk back to the car I'll show you a few more things I love around here along this whole area are a bunch of different boutiques different shops and a pipe and cigar shop Okay so we've been exploring Pueblo we had Pueblo green chilies for lunch we went out and saw the state park I've shown you some of my favorite Parts about this town we did the Riverwalk but it doesn't feel like it would be appropriate for me to end a Pueblo Vlog without having some Pueblo green chili beer so here we are at Walters uh my favorite Brewery in Pueblo they have amazing beer when mom is taking naps and sleeping this is kind of the place that I escape away to they have a food truck outside today which I think is pretty cool but uh let's go inside and get a drink okay well I got a flight um I just love some of their beers I got this is their um they have a bombshell Blackberry sour that was released today now I actually got a sneak peek of it yesterday so I know that I love it then I have the Pueblo chili that's this one you've gotta have a chili beer one in Pueblo and they got the lemon shandy nice summer beer and then the coffee box over there um I just grabbed a seat over here kind of in the pool area it's super chill there's like another area back over there the main bar is like right there then there's a whole another seating area over there and then let me just actually go show you outside because they have a huge outdoor space as well that I think is so cool tables to go all the way back there more tables and stuff all up there they have the like Bistro lights looks very cool at night time this place has actually kind of been just a bit of a sanctuary for me honestly on my trips here um I've gotten to know one of the bartenders which is super cool and I just love coming here it's never like even when it's busy it's not like loud and crazy uh everybody I've met here has been super nice and so I just I don't know I love it and they have good beer what's that like dressed like that my flight is done um also it's really cool this Brewery Walters has been in business since 18. 89 now it hasn't been continuous in fact I'm pretty sure that it closed down for a while and just fairly recently well I think recently reopened but throughout the brewery they have all sorts of like historical newspapers and other things about the brewery I mean look how cool these old cans are when they're down here I can't just a bunch of old things they used to have like that pen is so cool oh I love it wait a second like a Walters pipe and ashtray but my Beer's done I think Mom is awake or waking up soon I need to go home and make dinner for her so I'm gonna head out well I walked outside to a downpour sunshine what the heck's going on Pueblo I am back at my mom's house but the Vlog is not over yet because there's one more thing I really want to show you but I think as I mentioned earlier you have to see it at night it is just it's amazing at night so I'm gonna put you down for a little bit and then I'll pick you back up a little bit later when we go check out the last thing I want you to see here in Pueblo okay so it is a number of hours later it is about 8pm I just left Mom's house um and I want to end the Vlog by showing you a couple of things first of all check this out this is the Rollins Public Library here in Pueblo it is gigantic and it's been voted as one of the best libraries in the country I think this is bigger than the public library we have in Anchorage which is a city probably three times the size of Pueblo very very cool but what I want to show you is this yellow brick road and this piece of art right over here um I actually forgot that I wanted to show you this earlier so before we go to our last spot I want you to see this how flipping cool and again this is just the kind of art that they have all over the city it says everything you were looking for was right there with you all along all right now we're gonna go to a place here in Pueblo called neon alley uh it's actually like a block away from where I started the video this morning and I think I mentioned this earlier my first trip to Pueblo my mom brought us there at night time and I remember walking through thinking what am I seeing I've never seen anything like it before it is so cool and uh it's best experienced at night you'll see why here in a second you also want to know one more thing that's really cool is that we actually have a viewer of ours who works here in the Pueblo public library and I love that welcome to what is known here in Pueblo as neon alley it's a whole little section here I'm going to walk around and show you it is just filled with the coolest neon signs everything from Super Tommy's Burgers Police Department a giant Scott office pencil the Greyhound sign and you can see some of them aren't even lit up yet there are so many of them I love the Aladdin's sign down there is that Batman and Robin like a Shell Gasoline sign a Rexall Drug sign and you can see there are even more down this way and over here there's there even more isn't this so cool there's a good view of a lot of the alley and then over here you can see we have even more it just keeps going and I just wish it showed up better on video because look how far down it goes down there on both sides of the street I love the dogs and suds sign and what ones we have up here the star bus depot Steel City Electric Formal Wear this there's like an old cigar sign down there and as I'm heading out there's another wall of neon signs here so you can see looking back to Neon alley kind of the main area right there around the corner and then they have a trolley car here because why not and they also have like an old school red telephone booth I just love it so much it was funny because I stopped to take a bunch of photos um I love the way the neon was reflecting in all of the water because it's been raining and so you were kind of getting neon in the ground and in the sky so I was taking a bunch of photos down by the ground where the water was and the guy saw me taking them and he came over he's like can I see those and so I showed him he's like can I get that photo and so I I sent him uh the photo that he wanted um so you guys that was Pueblo Colorado uh this is um the town that my mom lives in the town my mom absolutely loves in fact I asked her earlier I said Mom why Pueblo like how did you decide on Pueblo and she told me a story that I actually didn't know she said Adam it was an accident I said well what do you mean how do you move to a town by accident she said that her and a friend of hers were on a road trip and they stopped at a town in New Mexico that they really liked and it started with a p but she couldn't remember the name of the town so when she got back home to Alaska she started looking and uh on a on a map remember those old school things and she saw Pueblo and she thought well maybe that was it um and so she kind of made a note to come back here and so a friend of hers moved to Colorado and my mom came to Pueblo and she said that within five days not consecutive but five days in Pueblo she bought her house she came here for one weekend a second weekend and it was the first day on the third weekend that she bought her house because she said as soon as she moved here she started meeting people and one of the things that she said I thought was really interesting she said she noticed that as she walked down the street people would look her in the eye smile and say hello it's as simple as that so I wanted to make this video for a couple of reasons number one it was important to me to document the town that my mom lives in and absolutely loves number two uh lots of sirens somewhere uh number two I just I've had the most amazing experiences here it's a town that I genuinely look forward to visiting when I get to come down here and see my mom it has exceeded every expectation that I've ever had every story that I heard of Pueblo has not proved to be true in my experience and I just wanted to share that with all of you because to me pueblo is such a good reminder that you can find beauty anywhere if you are willing to look for it who would think a place as cool as neon alley exists in Pueblo Colorado who would think that a place like the Riverwalk where we went earlier a beautiful downtown Riverfront area exists in Pueblo Colorado and there are so many things I didn't get to show you that I love there's an Italian Market here that serves unbelievable meatball subs it's been here for more than a hundred years uh my favorite restaurant in all of Pueblo is a place called Martinez Cafe uh it's owned by I believe it's two sisters uh kind of near my mom's house they have the most amazing food um there's just so much about this town that I have grown to love and it was important to me to share it with all of you so friends that's Pueblo Colorado I think it's freaking awesome and I hope you do too we'll see you on the next leg life video [Music]

Channel: LeggLife

Views: 43,721

Keywords: legglife, adam legg, sherri legg, pueblo, pueblo co, pueblo colorado, pueblo 2023, visiting pueblo colorado, what is pueblo colorado like, is pueblo colorado safe, pueblo travel vlog, colorado travel vlog, pueblo riverwalk, pueblo walter's beer, pueblo chile, pueblo slopper, pueblo neon alley, neon alley, slopper burger, things to do in pueblo, things to do in colorado, colorado travel, places to visit in colorado, pueblo 2024, pueblo colorado real estate, pueblo downtown

Id: 92MAHVNeMts

Length: 32min 45sec (1965 seconds)

Published: Mon May 15 2023