Going to Colorado

Chris and I had been meaning to make our way to Colorado ever since his brother moved there about a year ago. We weren't sure when we wanted to visit, but about 6 months ago Erik (Chris' brother) liked a Macaroni and Cheese Festival event on Facebook. I LOVE Mac and Cheese! It was happening about an hour and a half drive from Denver (where Erik and his partner live) on the 17th of July. So of course as soon as he liked it I told Chris that's when we are visiting. We made plans and purchased the tickets and everything was set. All that was left was to wait for the day to come!

In the weeks leading up to our trip I found myself asking what was Denver going to be like? I thought it might be the same temperature as Portland or even a lower temperature since it's at a higher altitude. I knew it was going to be a lot more rocky because, duh, it's right next to the Rocky Mountains. I always thought of Denver as bigger than Portland, more crowded. Probably not as liberal simply because it's in the Midwest and they tend to lean more toward Conservatism. I grew up in southern Oregon, in the mountains, so I had an idea of what to expect as far as scenery.

The day finally arrived and we set off to Colorado via Southwest Airlines. When we arrived at 5:30 p.m. I noticed a significant jump in temperature. Though we have had some warm days earlier this year in Portland, lately it's been in the upper 60s and lower 70s. It was 85 degrees in Denver and I immediately broke out into a light sweat. Luckily it was a dry heat and as my body acclimatized to the temperature it wasn't so bad. Erik and Andrew came to pick us up from the airport, but we had some issues. Our plane was about 20 minutes early, which was very good because the Denver airport is HUGE. It has a main lobby that you go through security and three different terminals that, depending on where you are going, depart to different areas. United airways owns most of the airport so one terminal is solely devoted to them. One is international, and one is all of the other domestic flights. We needed to get to the arrival area which was in the main security building so Erik could pick us up. Thankfully the trains that go between the terminals were all very easy to figure out and we made our way to Erik's car.

Erik drove us to his house and explained along the way that the airport was built very far from the city because it's the 4th most utilized airport in the country and Denver wanted plenty of space for residential and commercial growth between the city and the airport. It was actually very interesting. It seems like Denver has a long view of things and it is collectively working toward creating a better city and surrounding area. As we were driving you could see Condo buildings sparsely covering very large open areas of land at much lower prices than in the city to lure people out into the new living areas and hopefully work at the airport.

Erik gave us a quick tour of the things we saw on the way to his home telling us what buses to get on, depending what we wanted to do in the morning. Denver looked pretty similar to Portland, as far as landscape, aside from being less green in general. As we drove by the skyline of Denver it was quite beautiful. The buildings are much larger in downtown and more grouped together than Portland. The sun reflecting off of all of the glass from the skyscrapers was breath-taking. The sunlight turned the buildings almost a glowing golden color.

We arrived at their place and got situated. We were feeling hungry so we made our way down South Broadway, which they lived near. South Broadway is apparently a pretty happening place to be. There were bars and pot shops everywhere; similar to Portland. As you walked down the street you could see murals all over street buildings and, being that it was a Wednesday, not too many people out yet. A couple of the restaurants were pretty crowded but ultimately we decided on Czech food. The food was quite similar to German (yum!) and the beer was delicious. Finishing up dinner, we decided to hit up a bar on the way home for a couple of drinks. I can't remember much about it which either means I drank too much, or it just wasn't really that memorable. It was the latter. Just your normal hole in the wall local bar. After drinks we were feeling tired so we walked home and went to bed.

The second day we were there Erik and his partner Andrew had to work, so Chris and I were left to our own machinations for the majority of the day. We decided we wanted to check out the mall, and the Capitol Building. We walked over to the light rail which was just a short 5 minute stroll. The public transportation in Denver is amazing. They have 5 train lines that go almost anywhere you want to go in the city, and their bus system is reliable and very comprehensive.

We took the light rail to Union Station which was near downtown/the Capitol Building/the Mall. Union station was also very large. It had a subterranean level where you go for all of the buses leaving the city, and an upper (ground) level where all the trains were. A short walk across the station, or under it, brought us to the main building where people could purchase tickets. A lot of the buildings in Denver are very old, and the craftsmanship was elegant. The ceilings were probably 50 feet high and arced in several places. Every arc had painstakingly detailed designs that were carved out of the wood in old Victorian style. As we looked around we decided we were hungry. There was a cute restaurant in the building called Snooze. It was a Thursday so we figured that it wouldn't be a very long wait. Apparently we were wrong. Snooze is the most popular brunch place in all of Denver. Whoops. The wait was going to be about 40 minutes but the seats at the bar were up for grabs if they were/became empty. We got a couple of drinks and decided to wait for some seats to open up at the bar. The wait ended up only being about 15 minutes. The food was very very good, but the portions were a bit on the small side. However, I would definitely go back.

After brunch we walked down 16th Mall Street. It's the main drag down by the mall and seems to go on forever. At first it was mostly just big name stores that you would expect to see in a mall conglomeration. As you kept walking the street divides with a beautiful median full of trees and places to sit with a narrow strip of street on either side. Only rapid buses were allowed to drive on these streets. It seems a lot safer that way and it makes people want to come hang out. While walking and admiring the sites we noticed there was a very heavy police presence. At least one patrol car/officer every block or so was stationed on the median. We weren't sure why, but we were glad to have them there since they made us feel more safe. Later, upon inquiring Eric, we learned that the reason there was a heavy police presence is because a week or so ago someone on drugs went crazy in the neighborhood running around hitting people in the back of the head with a steel pipe. Locals and tourists were hurt very badly. Denver didn't want tourists to think that their city was unsafe, so they posted a lot more police at the mall. There were lots of cute little boutique shops all along the road and we stopped in some of them to look around. One of them was a leather shop and Chris fell in love with a red/orange jacket. It was $500. He looked really good in it but we couldn't justify buying it.

Eventually we made our way to the Capitol building. Sitting on a grassy knoll, this building is enormous. It has a huge dome on the very top center of the building painted a shiny gold. When the sun hits it, look out. It's quite stunning. There is a large park area around the building with paved walkways, and trees for some shade.

It was nearing mid-afternoon at this point so we decided to head back and take a nap before the boys got home. We got on the bus after some confusion as to which one to take and made our way home. I wanted to see what a pot shop was like in Denver versus Portland so we stopped by one. It's similar only in that they both sell weed. I will go into the differences in a later post. We went  home and took our nap and when the boys got home we decided to go out to dinner. We weren't sure where to go, but Chris was starving and he had a craving for Korean. Luckily there was a Korean BBQ place within a 15 minute walk that was all you can eat. I don't particularly care for Korean as a don't like pickled things, or seafood, both of which dominate Korean culture. Thank goodness for all you can eat meat! I mostly had rice and lots of meats. It was delicious! After dinner they took us a bar that was about 2 blocks from their place. They hadn't ever really been on the patio, so we decided to try it out and have our drinks there. Wow, the patio was gigantic! It wrapped around 2 sides of the building and a had a wall on all sides, so it was private, but still open to the air. There were several tables and chairs set about with comfortable distance between them and plants in pots everywhere to make it more lush and green. They had a full bar and a couple of TVs as well. All in all it was a really good spot to hang out, and the boys were happy they took us there because they discovered something new too!

After drinks it was about midnight so we decided to get some sleep. On the way home, something jumped out of the grass and darted in front of me to cross the street. It startled me and, embarrassingly, I screamed. Only to find out that it was a cute little bunny rabbit. All of the boys laughed at me, and at first I was a little annoyed, but couldn't help but join in. Bunnies are everywhere in Denver at night. I couldn't believe how many there were, if you look for them. They're like mice or squirrels would be up in Portland.

On Friday the boys got the day off so they slept in which Chris and I don't really do. We kinda putzed around the house for a while until they finally got up (at 11am!) and we decided on a plan for the day. Andrew had a doctors appointment, so he couldn't go with us, but we decided to go out to Red Rock amphitheater and Golden for the day to take the Coors Brewery tour.

Red Rocks amphitheater was awesome. You drive into this canyon and go up a hill for about 10 minutes. There are 3 tiers of parking all with staircases up to the next lot. The higher the lot, the closer you are to the amphitheater/visitors center. All around you are these giant red rocks with high desert terrain. Once you get to the top, there's a restaurant and a visitor's center. Walking across from the visitor's center you get to the amphitheater, but you could hear it LONG before you got there. The acoustics were astounding. You can see why they chose this spot to build, and also it makes sense now in history why they chose amphitheaters to speak. The natural acoustics mixed with modern technology made the ultimate spot for having concerts. We walked around for a while and listened to the music they were playing (some pop music, not sure who was singing). It was getting hot and we wanted to head over to the dinosaur exhibit we saw on the way into Red Rocks, so we left.

We didn't plan the dinosaur exhibit; we just kind of happened upon it and wanted to check it out. It was mostly just a paved trail you could walk along and look at fossils and different layers of rock along the way. It was a little disappointing because we expected to see more fossils/foot prints, but they were few and far between. All we got from this adventure was a mild sunburn.

Golden is about a 45 minute drive from Denver with Red Rocks being nearby. It's a quaint little town that offers some touristy shops but mostly it's all about the Coors tour. We drove over and went to the brewery. The wait for the tour was going to be over 2 hours, so we nixed that idea and asked the attendant for stuff to do in the area. She suggested we take the short tour which you don't really have to wait for, and you can just go get free beer. So we moseyed over to the lounge, skipped the short tour because we really just wanted beer, and went straight to the tap room. There were a lot of people there. One thing I noticed about Denver is that there are always a LOT of people everywhere you go. It doesn't really matter where you go; you will always wait in a line. Since there were so many people we ended up sharing tables with other people a couple of times, which turned out to be very satisfying. The people were all nice, talkative, and friendly.   

After the taproom we left the brewery and walked around the town. Erik wanted Tibetan food for dinner so we walked up this enormous hill to get to the restaurant (which was at the top of course). After arriving at the restaurant, we looked closer and noticed the windows were a bit dark, and there wasn't a sign indicating if they were open or not. They weren't. We were not having the best of luck in Golden. Erik knew of a really good pizza place that was down the hill so we decided to go there. We were all pretty hungry at this point because none of us had eaten breakfast since the boys got up so late, and we had a very small lunch at the house consisting of eggs and toast. We stepped into the restaurant and lo and behold, it was a buffet! All the salad, all the pizza, all the soup you want. We attacked all the food with the fury of a starving wolf taking down his prey. After sating our rumbling bellies, we headed back to Denver so we could siesta and see what Andrew wanted to do that night.

After siesta ended around 9pm, we decided to hit up the clubs. The boys brought us to one of the other bars near their place and it was cute and had decent drinks. It wasn't a very big bar and it was kind of slow so you could tell they weren't busy on a very regular basis. It was more of a hang out place for the locals than an in-it-to-win-it business. It was getting late, and the boys decided they wanted to go home and sleep around 1230 a.m., but Chris and I were not ready to go to bed yet. We asked the boys where we could go to have some fun and they suggested a strip club down the street. I won't go into details, but we had a good time (nothing too scandalous I promise!) and got home around 2:30 a.m..

Saturday we had planned to go to a Mac and Cheese festival which was up in the mountains near Breckenridge/Copper Mountain about an hour and a half away from Denver. Since it was the weekend we should have left a bit earlier than we did. We ended up leaving at about 10:30 a.m. so we hit some traffic up the mountain which sucked, but it wasn't any worse than Portland. We got to the festival around 12:30 p.m.. We looked around for someone we could talk to, and they informed us that the event didn't start until 2. We were annoyed because we thought it started at 10 (per the Facebook event page saying so). That meant wandering around for a while which was fine. The little mountain town was very charming, but the people were a little pretentious. You could tell the people that lived there didn't really like tourists from they way they looked at you and their general demeanor. The town had a bunch of winding pathways, but it was very sunny and there wasn't a lot of places for shade. We found a standalone porch swing so we congregated near that and got some beers from a nearby shop to enjoy.

Around 2 we headed to the festival and bought our Mac and Cheese bucks so we could purchase the samples at the booths. The attendant was extremely rude to Andrew and none of the people running the festival seemed to know what they were doing. We got in line for our first sample and noticed there was NO SHADE anywhere. It was 88 degrees outside, and being at an elevation of 11,000 feet puts you a LOT closer to the sun (considering Portland is an elevation of 50 ft above sea level). We were in line for about 25 minutes. I put on sunscreen before we even walked over to the festival area, but I didn't spray my arms. I didn't think they would burn, since they are the darkest part of my body. Boy was I wrong. My arms turned into lobsters. More and more people kept showing up and the lines just kept getting longer. Most people were getting their samples, and then immediately getting back in line for a different kind. I was resigned to the fact that I was getting burned on my arms, but the lines were ridiculous. We spent 25 minutes in the first line, 35 in the second, and 45 in the third. By the time we were done with our last sample, it was 4 p.m. and the festival ended at 4:30 p.m. so we high tailed it out of there to avoid the traffic/sun. Later we found out that they ran out of Mac and Cheese right after we left and a bunch of people had tons of Mac and Cheese bucks that the festival wouldn't refund. The whole thing was a pretty big disappointment between rude people, incorrect start times, minuscule portions, disorganization, and WAY too many people for that small area.

After we left, we made our way down the mountain, and stopped at a marina on a lake for a walk. The views were amazing. Another quaint little town with shops and tiny restaurants. As we made our way through town and down the pier at the marina I saw lots of small families out on their own adventures. It was easy to relax and enjoy the walk through the town taking in the beautiful scenery.

We left the marina after our walk and drove back to Denver.  It was about dinner time at this point so we grabbed something quick to eat and headed back home. All of us were tired from the activities of the day and we were all sunburned, so a movie was the best bet for the evening. We decided on a horror movie called 28 Weeks Later. I had never seen it but the other 3 had. It was a good movie, though pretty gruesome in some spots. After the movie we went to bed.
  
Sunday was another sleep in day. Things got rolling around 11 am. Since we were all sunburned we decided indoor activities were best for the day if we could help it. Or a least shade. Eric gave us a driving tour of the city for most of the day, which was pretty fun. We got to see the rich part of Denver, the poor part, the up and coming parts and all in between. One thing I noticed about Denver is they have parks all over the place. One of them he took us to was unbelievably large and in a very rich part of the city. We stopped for a light lunch during our travels and then went to one of the popular gay bars for an event they were having.  It's called Beer Bust and they do it every Sunday from 4pm to 9 pm. You pay $10 for a cup and they give you as many refills of Coors Light (YUCK) as you want. I like some kinds of beer. Mostly wheat beer. Coors Light, in my opinion, is gross. So I just stuck to cocktails.

We hung out at the bar until around 6:30 p.m.. Chris and Erik's god-sister, that they hung out with when they were little, wanted to see us. She and Chris hadn't seen each other in about 20 years so we all went out to dinner at a Mexican taco place. The food was delicious and the conversations were enjoyable. Chris didn't say much, but Eric and Tessa talked a lot. It was interesting hearing stories about Chris when he was little. After dinner was finished we went back home and we didn't really have anything planned for the rest of the day. Eric and Andrew had to work in the morning, and we had to fly back to Portland so we wanted something low-key again. Erik threw a playlist together of funny videos on the internet and we laughed for hours. It was an excellent last night in Denver. We said our goodbyes before heading to bed because we wouldn't see each other in the morning.

It was a pretty uneventful flight back to Portland. Normal airport shenanigans and travel. Over all Denver was a very fun trip and I would definitely go back. I don't think I could live there but it's a fun city to visit.