“A Mile High in Denver”

Aurora (Denver) July 11, 2024 – July 25 – 2024

We arrived in Denver – and you guessed it – during a heat wave. Denver had temperatures of 104 degrees while we were there (a 146 year record). Steve escaped for 6 days and went to visit his father in the cool temperatures of Hollywood, Florida – yes – it was hot there as well.

One of the best parts of staying in a large city is the art museums, and the Denver Art Museum was awesome. The best part was the museum had a Van Gogh – not a famous one – but still. The museum had art displayed over seven floors and spectacular views of downtown.

We also visited the Denver Botanic Gardens. Yes, it was hot. But if we did not go in hot weather, then we were going to miss the gardens. The gardens were beautiful, well maintained and easy to tour. The gardens had several restaurants, which was different then others and it was on the small side for a large city. The gardens integrated “spirit guides” to add some interest to the gardens. Created by Mexican artists, these brightly colored and richly patterned sculptures depict imaginary hybrid animals that act as spirit guides – besides that, they were just pretty.

And here are the Spirit Animals!

We only visited one brewery while in town and that was Great Divide. The beer was pretty good and our lunch was tasty. We also tried a local happy hour at Postinos, where we enjoyed some good wine at a good price and tried the house specialty bruschettas.

Ziva spent a relaxing two weeks in Denver. She did a lot of napping.

A highlight of the stay in Denver was visiting Paco Varela (a friend of Steve’s from college) and his spouse, Tim. Our first evening in town we went to the Botanic Gardens for a concert. Paco and Tim are VIP’s so we received very special treatment. We had a picnic on the grounds and watched two bands perform in the amphitheater. It was very nice. Before we left Denver, we had dinner one evening in the Pearl Street District with Paco, which capped off a very enjoyable stay in Denver.