Denver, Colorado

Visited May 24 - 31, 2021

By Janell

 

We put the Beast into storage in Erie, CO (a Denver suburb) and stayed at Garrett’s house in Denver. We “babysat” Garrett’s dog, Arlo during the week while Garrett was at work.

This is Arlo - he's a Black Lab/German Shepherd mix and about a year old

Then on Thursday evening, Matt flew in for five nights over the Memorial Day weekend. The last time we were all together was Christmas 2019. We made the most of our time together, playing lots of games and exploring the greater Denver area.

We started out with downtown Denver:

Union Station, a 140-year old landmark, is still an active train station

A couple of years ago we took the train from Denver International Airport to Union Station, and we spent the night at the Crawford Hotel, which is located upstairs, right in the train station. The Crawford is an elegant old hotel, and it was a treat for my birthday. The next day Garrett met us for breakfast at a restaurant in the station, and then we boarded another train to go to Winter Park for the weekend.

We would've liked to see a Rockies game, but they weren't in town

The 16th Street Mall

The Colorado State Capitol was not open - literally, the doors were locked and no one was around

Marty and I have been to Denver many times since Garrett went away to college in 2009 (to Boulder), but we'd never heard of the blue bear. It was Matt who said he'd read about it, and so we went in search of it. 

This 40-foot high bear is peering into the Colorado Convention Center. The bear was created by a local artist, Lawrence Argent and installed in 2005. According to denver.org, he quickly became a "bona fide Mile High City icon - and a can't-miss photo op for tourists and locals alike". Who knew?? Not us.

Now, this is a blue icon we did know about!

Unfortunately, this photo is not catching him at his best, BUT this is Blucifer, as the locals call him. As you can see, he is bright blue, but you cannot see that he has illuminated glowing red eyes! Garrett had told us that Blucifer, who is located at Denver International Airport, is reputed to have killed his creator, Luis Jiménez. 

According to my friend, Wikipedia, Blucifer is 32' tall and weighs 9,000 pounds! Luis Jiménez was killed in 2006 at age 65 while creating the sculpture when its head fell on him and severed an artery in his leg. At the time of his death, Jiménez had completed painting the head of the mustang. The sculpture was completed with the help of the artist's staff, family, and professional race-car painters Camillo Nuñez and Richard LaVato. Upon completion the sculpture was sent to California for assembly and then shipped to Denver. Blue Mustang was unveiled at Denver International Airport on February 11, 2008.

Now that's some scary stuff!!  

Since we weren't able to catch a better shot of him, here's a link to some better shots of Blucifer:

Blucifer

This is another greetingstour.com mural

I knew they had done one in Denver so we sought it out. It was on the side of the Denver Beer Company building – no, we did not go in. Contrary to the impression our blog might've given you – we cannot visit every brewery!

We did visit a brewery called Ratio that was in this neighborhood with all these cool murals:

From one angle ...

From the opposite angle

Fancy-schmancy desserts at the sushi restaurant where we celebrated Garrett's belated 30th

"Stay and chat a while, won't you?" These pups were just down the street from the sushi restaurant.

 

 

About those boys ... where are they anyway?

Yes, I know at the ages of 30 & 33, they are men, but they're still our boys.

Garrett & Matt

Garrett, who’s an avid mountain biker, took Matt out biking at Marshall Mesa while Marty and I hiked around with Arlo.

Our view of the Flat Iron Mountains from the Marshall Mesa Trail

We drove up Flagstaff Summit Road to Artist's Point:

Apparently people get dressed up to come here and have their photos taken

Perhaps we were under-dressed for our photo session?

We strolled the Pearl Street Mall in downtown Boulder:

Marty is often lagging behind to take photos, but I didn't know he was taking one of us

Finally! They have sandals in Marty's size!

On the patio at Avery Brewing there were a couple of guys with a couple of dogs. This one dog, unbeknownst to his owner, was gnawing on his leash. As Marty and Garrett watched in amusement, the dog completed the task and then nonchalantly walked away from his table. The dog's owner was unaware until Marty went over to tell him that his dog had gone AWOL. It was so funny!

With his plot foiled, he's a sad pup now. Notice the knot in his leash.

Red Rocks Amphitheatre is AWE-some! I don't know if we'll ever see a show there, but even just wandering around the place is fun. Of course you know that you can see a concert there, but it’s also an actual park where you can hike, mountain bike or ride horseback on trails. Red Rocks is owned by the city of Denver, and it’s open from one hour before sunrise through one hour after sunset.

Chances are whenever you go you’ll see some energetic locals running up and down the stone steps. On Saturdays and Sundays at 7:00am you can attend a yoga class. I saw a picture of the amphitheatre with brightly clad yogis filling up the stone steps. Like no yoga class I’ve ever attended. Quite a sight!

You can even see a film there. “Film On The Rocks” has been happening for 20 summers. Each summer they have several drive-in films in the parking lot as well as a small handful of in-amphitheatre films (which feature an opening comedian or band and fun audience participation contests). 

But back to the amphitheatre as a concert venue. Red Rocks became a music venue in the early 1900s, when John Brisben Walker set up a makeshift stage among the rocks. A famous opera singer, Mary Garden, came to perform and declared it “acoustically perfect,” and it’s been revered by musicians ever since. According to Denver.org, it’s “acoustically impeccable” and a “naturally stunning marvel of ochre sandstone”. It’s even been designated a National Historic Landmark.

In addition to all of the above, there’s a visitor center which has among other things, a Performers Hall of Fame. We did spend a fair amount of time in there looking at photos and posters of the famous musicians who’ve played at Red Rocks. It’s an impressive list!

Red Rocks Amphitheatre expects to return to full capacity (which is over 9,500) on June 21, 2021.

We hiked at North Table Mountain and got the grand view of the city of Golden. Golden, as you may know is where the Coors Brewing Company started back in 1873. Wikipedia reports that the Coors location in Golden is the largest single brewing facility operating in the world.

Did you know that Coors was Marty's first favorite beer? Yep, when we met that was his beer of choice.

The buildings in the lower left quadrant belong to the Coors Brewing Company

On our North Table Mountain hike

Apparently in Golden, pups sit at sidewalk tables and read newspapers. I'm sure he's wondering when the server is coming to take his drink order!

More about Arlo:

We bought Arlo a fish. It's not just any fish, it's a fluffandtuff.com fish. Their toys are super sturdy, with some near indestructible mesh lining that makes it pretty hard to chew it up. I also like the fish rather than animals with big or long appendages, which could be easily ripped off. Arlo did manage to remove one fin from the fish, but then thankfully he seemed to have given up on his fin removal project. He became quite fond of the fish, and even seemed to know the word "fish" by the time we left (as in "go get your 'fish'!") 

Garrett says that every day when he comes home Arlo's #1 priority is to "get the fish". Arlo likes his other toys also. Check out this video where he plays keep-away with Garrett.

He's so doggone cute!

But he isn't perfect ...

He was left out of his crate for one hour after Garrett left for work in the morning and before we got up.

It was hard to leave Arlo behind! We tried to tell him that we'd see him next spring, but maybe we'll facetime with him in the meantime. 😁 We can only imagine how hard it would be if we had real grandchildren!

Speaking of grandchildren - I know it's not okay to post pics of grandkids online without parental permission. Maybe I should've asked Garrett before posting these pics of Arlo?

Sorry if this post was too much about Arlo for you. The next post will be all "business" - I promise!