Denver, Colorado

On Saturday 16th July it was finally time to leave Telluride. I had an amazing 2 weeks there, so it was a bit sad bidding it farewell. If we ever end up living in the USA for a bit, Will is dead keen to return during the ski season. Our original plan was to hire a car and spend a few days doing a road trip on the way to Denver, Colorado in time for Will's next conference. Unfortunately, Telluride is a tiny place, and there were a lot of people in town for the Neuromorphic Engineering workshop that Will had been attending, as well as another Science conference that was in town. This meant that there were no hire cars available, and flights from the closest airport were expensive, plus a pain to get to via a 45 minute shuttle ride. Luckily, Jeff, the UCI professor that Will was visiting, was driving a hire car to Denver airport on the Saturday as he was flying from there back to Irvine. He was giving a lift to Tiffany, one of his students, but also had room for the two of us plus our luggage. It worked out perfectly, Will sat in the front and talked shop with him for the 5 and a half hour road-trip, while Tiffany and I sat in the back and watched the amazing Rocky Mountain scenery go by (and maybe also spent a bit of time dozing!).

We arrived at the airport and Jeff and Tiffany headed off to check in for their flight home, while Will and I caught the light rail to an Airbnb I had booked for 3 nights. It was a really cute place. A spacious one-bedroom apartment in a duplex, where the hosts live in the next door apartment. It was only 5-minutes walk to the light rail which quickly takes you into downtown.

Our apartment was quite close to Sloan's lake which is a 177 acre park area northwest of Denver. On Sunday we went for a very nice walk around the lake and checked out the local area.

We spent Monday exploring Downtown Denver. Union Station (above) is the major transport hub for light rail, buses and Amtrak trains. It's a lovely space in a very cool building, one of the nicest 'train stations' I've come across. The area south of Union Station is known as LoDo (Lower Downtown) and is very hip and happening with lots of cafes, restaurants and brewpubs. Nearby is the Tattered Cover bookstore which is one of the largest independent bookstores in the United States. The place is vast with several floors of books, and a cafe and several reading rooms where you are more than welcome to read items of interest that you've found. It was a lovely place to while away a bit of time.

We also stumbled across the Skyline Park which was another great place to hang out for a bit! It is full of free recreational activities like table-tennis, mini-golf, and the beanbag toss which Will is doing below. The Americans love this game, you see it everywhere!

We found an awesome brewpub for an early dinner. We were after something substantial to sustain us as we had tickets to the baseball that evening. A hearty Louisiana gumbo with jalapeno cornbread did the trick for us both, washed down with a couple of very good beers, brewed on site.

The baseball was the Colorado Rockies vs the Tampa Bay Rays at Coors Field which is right in downtown Denver. 

As soon as we arrived at the stadium the heavens opened and we were treated to a thunder and lightening storm. The ground staff got the diamond covered up pronto.

First pitch was delayed by about 40 minutes due to the rain, but Will and I didn't mind. We spent the time exploring the very cool stadium. Eventually the storm blew through and the covers came off...

We were treated to a very entertaining game of baseball. The Rockies ended up beating the Rays 7 runs to 4. I've said it before, but I'm really enjoying my baseball over here. Going to a live game is a great night out.

 

On Tuesday we moved into the conference hotel: The Hyatt Regency at the Denver Tech Center. This was a very nice hotel, and even nicer because Victoria University was paying for it! Will was attending GECCO (Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference) which was being held in the hotel from the Wednesday to Sunday. He had a workshop tutorial to run, a workshop paper to give, and a full paper to present. Enough to keep him busy and out of trouble...

I managed to keep myself busy as well... Especially since over dinner at the first night of the conference a couple of Will's friends talked me into downloading 'Pokemon GO on my phone! It was all the rage at the conference, probably not surprising when you have so many 'geeks' (and I mean that in the nicest possible way, geeks are awesome!) congregated in the one place. The hotel wifi server went down at one stage which was probably caused by all the Pokemon players...

I spent most of one day at the Denver Botanic Gardens, exploring the sights and catching some Pokemon. The game actually suits me well as I walk for ages when I'm travelling and exploring new places, and that is a vital component of the game. You can't hunt for Pokemon and hatch eggs without lots of walking. There was a pretty cool sculpture exhibition on at the gardens, my favourite was 'Hare on Bell on Portland Stone Piers' above.

The potager garden made me a little bit homesick for my vege garden at home in NZ...

There is a Chihuly glass sculpture in the permanent collection at the gardens. I hadn't come across Dale Chihuly's work before, but later in my travels I'd visit his amazing museum in Seattle.

 Across the road from the main gardens is the children's Garden which you can also visit as part of your ticket. There was a very sweet sculpture called 'Who's watching who?'.

Another day was spent at the Denver Zoo. Now this place really was filled with people catching Pokemon! It mightn't have quite been the same as seeing a wild one in Telluride, but at last I finally got to see a bear... The zoo had a black bear and a grizzly. It also had a polar bear enclosure but they weren't on display. Probably something to do with the fact the temperature was in the mid thirties! I imagine they were safely tucked away in an air-conditioned enclosure somewhere...

Here is a selection of other pics. I do like my animals, especially my birds...

Unfortunately there were no lions on display as the existing mature male had passed away early May. The zoo had four new cubs, but they were still in quarantine when I was there. I made do with a lego lion instead...

On my last day in Denver I walked the couple of miles to the Cherry Creek State Park. This is a large recreational boating and swimming lake, and a lovely place to hang out and read my kindle in the sunshine.

So, that was the end of our time in Denver. Will's conference went well and he enjoyed catching up with some of his NZ colleagues and students who were also attending. The conference finished after lunch on Sunday, and that evening we had a flight to Vancouver ready for his next conference. With all the travel he has done over the last couple of years, Will currently has Star Alliance Gold status which was good enough to get us into the United Airlines lounge before our flight. I've got to say, they sure do make a mean margarita!