Today's routine starts out just like everyday!!! But instead of jumping on a scenic byway to view some of Colorado's beautiful scenery, we're going to ride into Denver & see some concrete & steel so to speak, as we take a tour of Denver! Even tho we're going into the "city", the drive in, still shows us some awesome scenery!
We get into Denver, Lennie already has our agenda planned! First stop, if we can ever find a parking space, is the U.S. Mint. There's no parking spaces to be found, we finally find a lot with an all day price. That works! We chose a lot within walking distance to what we want to see today. Let me say one thing...it's hot out today!!! We start out walking in the direction of the U.S.Mint. More than 50 million coins are made here daily.And the FREE tours show every step in turning a dull metal slug into a shiny new coin. As we approach the Mint, we don't see any tour lines? This is not a good sign! Sure enough we get to the TOUR door & see a sign that reads:NO TOURS ON FRIDAYS I feel Otis is at home laughing at us! While he's sucking up the A/C in the RV, we're out walking the HOT streets of Denver & our very first point of interest is closed to tours on Fridays!?! Oh well, moving on!
We walk through Civic Center Park heading toward Colorado's state Capital building. But first I want a picture of the Civic building, as long as we're here, why not, it was an impressive looking building!
Straight through the park is the Capital building.
It's visibly noticeable that the Capital building is under construction!
The Colorado State Capital building is modeled after Washington, D.C's capital building. This impressive building was completed in 1908 & offers FREE tours on weekdays. We learned on the tour that the dome is in the process of being recovered with 200 ounces of gold leaf. It should be done by this time next year, so our Tour guide told us.The 13th step on the west side of the building is exactly 5,280 ft above sea level-one mile high, thus the name,Denver,The Mile High City.
But......we learned on the tour, that this fact was not so!?! It's actually the 15th step, so a plaque was added to the step!
We got inside the Capital building 15 minutes short of a tour about to start! This was great, we just waited & pretty soon our tour began. There was probably 10 or so in our group. Our Tour Guide was a college student & had been leading tours for about a year. After the tour she told us we were free to walk about the Capital building. I was surprised how lax they were!?!
It was real warm inside the Capital building, so I didn't want to spend any extra time in there!
Can you tell all the chairs have plastic covering them? They're brand new chairs! A lot of remodeling was going on! That chandelier weighs a ton & a half.. Our Tour guide said about the size of a small elephant!
This picture was taken out the front door of the capital building, it shows the Civic building in the background. NO ONE was allowed to enter or exit the door that the Governor uses!!! At the end of the tour, those who wanted to, were invited to go up 4 more flights of stairs(we'd already WALKED up 3 flights of stairs to see the House & Senate) to a museum. I saw a few history buffs raise their hands, our Tour Guide escorted them to the stairs, then they were on their own! It was already too warm in a building with no A/C, 4 more flights of stairs.....I don't think so!?! We walked up those 3 flights of stairs with our Tour Guide, but once the tour was over & we were on our own, we took the elevator all the way down!An interesting thing we learned while on tour, underneath the Capital building there were 16 different tunnels leading to other buildings. More than most of the tunnels are now shut down.
Did I mention it's hot out? 104 degrees to be exact!!! We're now heading to 16th Street Mall, to look around, but mainly to eat! The 16th Street Mall is a mile long pedestrian promenade in the heart of downtown Denver. It has every store imaginable, & the center is all street vendors.
they had FREE shuttle buses too!
Did I say it was hot outside!?! Guess where we went for lunch!?! PIZZA!!!!! (Our waitress took this picture!)
Trust me we DID NOT eat this whole pizza! It turned into 2 meals!!!
With our bellies full, time to hit the streets again & walk off some of that pizza! But it's almost too hot out to do any walking. We must find some way to cool down!!! AAH! Here it is, Pinks Frozen Yogurt Shop!
This may look dangerously delicious, but it was all Fat-Free!
Yummy!!!!
Cooled off, but now we have to go back out & face the heat! That's okay, we're going back to the RV & the mountains! Driving back from Denver, the closer we get to Idaho Springs the temperature keeps dropping. It is 16 degrees cooler!Supposedly that 104 degrees temp was not a record breaker for Denver, but it was suppose to be the last hot day before "normal" temps returned? I didn't care we weren't going back to Denver, not this trip anyhow!?!
When we reach Idaho Springs, we stop at Otis' favorite McDonalds (the 24 hour one!) so Lennie can get the spoiled dog his promised McDouble!!!! I hide the McDouble in my camera bag, but you can't fool Otis when it comes to a McDouble!?!
Here you go you spoiled dog!
Today with the heat, I would have traded place with Otis. That is till it came to the choice of PIZZA vs a McDouble!?!
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