Denver

A few weeks ago Rick and I took a trip over to Denver for a couple of days.  Superior Asphalt will be doing the roads of a suburb close by, and Rick needed to make contact with the people at the city.  He also needed to look at some of the roads. 

Since I have never been to Denver (only in the airport) I asked if I could come along.  

We got up early on a Thursday morning,  I'm talking like 3:30 in the morning early!  Our flight left at 5:15 and was full.  There was a blizzard in Denver the night before so many of the flights were cancelled, but by early that morning flights were running again.  We knew that it was going to be snowy and cold so we packed for the occasion.

After arriving and renting our car we drove right to the downtown of Denver.  The first order of business was getting tickets to the Denver Mint.  We had just missed the 9AM tour so we bought our tickets for 11 AM and then needed to kill some time.  We stopped at a cute little restaurant where the locals like to eat. (According to the Mint's ticket agent)  It was a restaurant called Dozens situated in an old historic home.  The food was fantastic (especially the hot chocolate) and we got our bellies filled.

We still had a bit of time so we drove over to the State Capitol which was just a few blocks away.  What a magnificent building!  I got tears in my eyes when I looked up into the rotunda.  Seriously,  I did.  It was just so breathtaking!  We would have loved to take a tour and climb up INTO the rotunda but we did not have time for that.  It was getting close to our Mint tour time.  So glad we stopped to see this historic and beautiful building.

We really enjoyed our time at the Denver Mint.  No cameras were allowed, for obvious reasons, so no pictures, but it was really fascinating to see and learn how the US coin is made.  The day we were there they were producing pennies and dimes.  THIRTY MILLION A DAY!  I was in awe of the magnitude of it all.  Also, they store a whole lot of gold there.  BILLIONS of dollars worth of gold.

Crazy.

We spent about an hour in the gift shop and came out with a bunch of coins.  I mean like HUNDREDS of dollars worth.  They are mostly for an investment but we got a few packs of uncirculated coins for my dad, too.  He likes that kind of stuff.  His birthday is coming up and he turns the big 80 in a few weeks.  

Next stop was VooDoo Donuts.  While the donuts were good, they weren't worth the feeling of being accosted when you go into that place.  If you don't like crudeness, don't go in.  Anyway.....

That night we stayed in the Springhill Suites in Greenwood Village.  Right down the street was a unique Native American restaurant.  We tried it out for dinner.  While I had some chicken nachos, Rick went full boar with the bison ribs and fry bread.  Good eatin's!

The next day Rick took the morning and got some work done while I hung back at the hotel and read.  When he got back we grabbed some lunch and went exploring for the day.  I love historic homes so I suggested that we go back into the downtown area and visit the Molly Brown Home.
(The unsinkable Molly Brown)

Unfortunately, we did not take one picture of our time there:(  I totally forgot.

Margaret Brown was raised as a poor farm girl in Hannibal, Missouri.  When she was of age she left Hannibal to go see her brother who was mining for silver in Colorado.  While she was there she met and married James Brown.  Long story short he became a millionaire when gold was found in the mine.  Margaret Brown was a fighter for women's causes and helped in the suffrage movement.  It was fascinating to see her home and learn more about her.

Next, at the suggestion of our friend, Sarah Vandergon, we drove about forty minutes over to Golden.  It is a cute little old western town snuggled in a valley.  It has a river running through it and a fun shopping street.  We were able to find some trinkets for our grandkids and also perused an antique store.  I'm not much for antique stores but we spent an hour in that place looking at a bunch of cool stuff.  I did buy a new salt and pepper shaker because somehow mine got lost!  Of course, we had to stop at the chocolate shop and get some sweets:)

The next day was Saturday and our flight wasn't scheduled to leave until the afternoon so we took the time to go to the temple.  The Denver Temple was very close to where we were staying.  This was one of the highlights of our trip.  Every temple is so magnificent and unique.  I loved my experience here.  This is our third new temple of the year.

While this trip was short, it was nice to be able to see some of the sights of Denver.  One thing that I was surprised about was the lack of mountains.  I always thought that Denver was a lot like SLC with mountains around.  You know, that big Rocky Mountain Range?  Well, there are mountains but they are far away.  If you're lucky and you look really hard you can see them in the distance.  Without the mountains I could never tell which direction we were going.  I kept asking Rick, "Which direction are we going?"  Somehow he always knew.  It felt so strange to me.  

I think it would be nice to go back when it is warm and do some outside activities.

Thanks, Denver for a nice visit!