A day in the Mile High City

The flight from Reykjavik to Denver took seven hours. We passed over Greenland and Canada, and could see icebergs twinkling in the water far below us. The last part of the flight was quite bumpy; there were a few storms about. On arrival at Denver we attempted to catch a city bus into town but after waiting about a bit, we gave up and jumped into a taxi which took us right to our hotel. The friendly receptionist told us that we would be able to see the 4th of July fireworks from outside the hotel at 10 p.m., which was only about 20 minutes after we arrived. So we found ourselves standing on a grassy slope overlooking Elitch Park on a warm evening watching a very decent firework display. A nice welcome back to America!

We all slept well and woke to a hot and humid day; after a hearty breakfast (the Andersons love a waffle maker!) we set off on a self-guided walking tour which James had downloaded onto his phone. It was sweltering, but we dutifully made our way around the main sights of the town. It's not a very old town; the state Capitol and government buildings were only built in the 1890s. We popped into the Art Museum very briefly and I was very excited by my visit to the toilet, where the wash hand basins sang "Row, row, row your boat" in all different voices when you put your hands under the taps - I had them all singing at once, it was great! James and Davie must have wondered why I was in there for so long! The shopping street (16th Street) had a lovely atmosphere; there were live bands and street performers, and people were playing giant chess and other games. I was also impressed with the large performing arts centre which had lots of different theatres. We chose a beautiful bar / restaurant for lunch called Baur's; the waitresses were very friendly and helpful. In fact we liked it so much that we returned there for dinner later. However it turned out that a show was about to start in the bar; it was Leif Vollebekk who is a singer/songwriter based in Montreal. As a result dinner was served in an adjoining little room which felt a bit odd but the food was delicious and we could hear the concert too. After dinner we moved through to the bar area and thoroughly enjoyed the music. I couldn't help noticing a very amorous couple right in front of us, who were all over each other until they had an unfortunate tiff and the girl stormed out. When we left, the boyfriend was forlornly ordering another glass of wine and the girl was standing outside the bar making a phone call. We will never know whether they got back together, I hope that they did.