Week 29 - Denver, Colorado ("The Mile High City")

Hello Family and Friends,

Denver is not really for tourist, it is for the people who live there. Brett went on Reddit to see what there is to do in Denver for tourist and a plethora of responses said "Nothing, Denver isn't for vacation". However, if you asked Reddit about a staycation, there were plenty of responses for a dinner here, a rooftop bar there and a dueling piano bar over there. We actually felt like Denver would be a great place to live. It has an abundance of restaurants, One local told us that the people of Denver love to eat out. It has quite a few little areas where you can find local restaurants and shops. The real draw of Denver as a city is that it is in close proximity to the mountains, while still having all the city amenities.

A view of Denver from the city scenic overlook.

Such as the art scene was alive and well in Denver. We were staying in the arts district and even midweek we saw the crowds coming from the shows as we would walk the dog and such.

Atlas and Brett enjoying an alto sax street performer. Notice how Atlas is copying Brett's position.

We wanted to take Mount Blue Sky Scenic Byway to drive up to the summit of Mount Blue Sky. It is summit that is over 14,000 ft and the highest point that you can drive to in the United States. However, the highway is closed until 2026 as they are doing repairs. So we just stayed in the city.

Some of the delays of the Mount Blue Sky Scenic Highway.

We took a nice evening bike ride along Cherry Creek Bike Trail. Denver has over 100 miles of bike trail and has a city bikeability score of 96. This is a huge green flag in our book. We stopped at the Cherry Creek Mall just for a little air conditioning and a snack. While there, we found a children's play area that was full of kids. The plan was to let Atlas play for a little while, but it turned into a long while because Atlas found some friends. Usually, whenever we go to a playground, Atlas will find a little boy who is about his size, run up to him and then start doing whatever he is doing. Typically the friend Atlas finds is a few years older, because Atlas is tall for his age and the older kids are always doing more interesting things. Well this time Atlas found a group of siblings, a set of boy girl twins that were 5 and their older sister that was 7. They were the most busy of all the kids there and probably among the oldest. That means they were doing the coolest things such as running, climbing jumping and sliding all over everything. At first I don't think they even realized Atlas was following them until the older sister went to take a break and Atlas stood right beside her and just stared. She would run and Atlas would follow. They would climb something twice in the time that he climbed it once. But they were having such a great time. You could hear Atlas squealing and laughing over all the other children. Brett, the guy who never meets a stranger, started talking to the Dad about what it was like raising a young family in Denver. The Dad didn't know all the answers to Brett's questions and so we got the Mom. Mickey, involved. By the end, we had closed the mall down and exchanged contact information.

Closing down the mall with our new friends.

We were already getting good vibes from Denver as a very livable place. Even before getting to Denver, we stopped in Glenwood Springs, Colorado to charge the car. It is about a two and a half hours drive outside of Denver. We were having lunch at this local burger joint, Underbelly Burger Co. Brett heard the table beside us talking about school being delayed because of smoke. So he asked was there something going on in town. The gentleman sitting beside us told us how there was a fire going on outside of town, but the smoke was really bad. We did notice when driving on the interstate that it was really hazy and now we knew why. He and Brett got to talking about our travels and driving an all electric car. He also was an electric car owner and told us that he refused to by a Tesla, because he didn't want to see that symbol in his garage everyday. Well that was a win in our book, so we were already feeling the people. Then add that the weather is dry and not humid. I mean it was hot, in the upper 90s, but it is August. Then after talking to Mickey and family, they let us know that in the winter they get snow, but it doesn't stay around. Mickey has lived in Denver her whole life and they will get a blizzard like every 5 years and she has never had to dig her car out of the snow.

Denver gets an A+ for great people. Even our cashier at the outlet mall told us that she loves how the people here are just really relaxed. All the hostess at the restaurants we went to referred to me as "friend". It was so different that I thought that maybe there is a hostess class in Denver and they teach them to call customers "friends".

We wish we could have done a deeper dive of Denver. It definitely seems like a place where we could call home.