If you make it to Rocky Mountain National Park, drive Trail Ridge Road from Estes Park to Grand Lake. It’s a beautiful drive. If it’s open. Fall River Road is a really sweet drive, gravel road, one way...up, but I know it’s probably not open yet.
That won’t be open this time of year, there’s about 20ft of snow across the roads. The Peak to Peak highway is an awesome drive from the Denver area to Estes Park that’s open year round. I’ve driven it many times and always enjoy it
OP, if you aren’t fond of masks you may not want to visit the mtns except for the stuff you really want to do. It’s been a few months but we went to Nederland(west of Boulder in the foothills) earlier in the fall and all of the businesses were mask nazis. Attitudes may have changed but beware. Everywhere I’ve been in the Denver area(downtown and north burbs) has been really lax on the mask policy.
I can second The Buckhorn Exchange, it’s expensive but great. Colorado has plenty of amazing steakhouses though so pick a few based on price and reviews and enjoy. You could hit up a Brazilian steakhouse(think of a meat buffet). My wife and I took her daughter to Texas De Brazil for her 18th bday and I was legit full for 24hrs. There are others too that are good, I can just vouch for that one
I know you said you’re driving, try to keep it that way. I don’t know if you’ve flown recently but the mask nazi is still strong on planes. I may have been involved in an incident recently…