A Day In The Life - 06/24/2011: The Last Of The Rocky Mountain High

The last day in Denver. Got to cram more fun into our trip.
So, we are wanting to visit the Denver mint but the schedule has been full for a month. But we hear that they take walk-ins. So we park by the Library/Museum complex and walk the three blocks to check it out. When we get there at 7:30 (a half hour before the first tour) we find that they do take walk ons and give them stand by tickets. Then we learned that you can't take purses, jewelry, food, knives or a million other things with you - and they don't have lockers to store anything in. So we get a stand by ticket for 9:00 AM. We walk back to the car to drop off everything. We have already checked out of our hotel so everything is in the trunk of the car.

 After shedding all of our worldly belongings we start back to the Mint. About half way back, Gaye breaks her sandal. So she sends me back to the car to get her tennis shoes. I am about half way there when I realize that I need to take her sandals with me so that she won't have to carry them around the mint with her. So, back I go. Got the sandals (and instructions to throw them away) and I am once more going back to the car. Got her shoes, got back to her and we got to the mint on time and even managed to be included in the 9:00 AM tour. (The people after us we not so lucky.) They were making pennies and Quarters that day. No samples were given.

 Then it was off to the State capitol. Did you know they fought in the Civil War?
They were having a quilt show in the capitol building and had them hung all around everywhere for three floors. We took the tour. It was very informative about the state. And then you can hike the additional 100 steps from the third floor to the top of the rotunda where you can see the view. By state law, no building can be built so tall that you cannot see the mountains from the top of the capitol building. So the view was really good.

 Gaye sat on the step marked at one mile high. Then we discovered that there are actually three places marked with that distinction because of better methods of measuring altitude. Hope we got the right one.

We had read about this restaurant in Denver that was established with the goal of being able to serve a nutritious hot meal to anyone. You pay what you can afford and if you can't afford anything then you work for your meal. The salad ingredients were mostly grown in the yard behind the place. It was good and so much like the United Order that it was a pleasure to eat there and contribute.


Some how we managed to get back to LIKS Ice Cream Emporium. I think that it was to get a better picture. Yes, I am sure that was what it was. It had absolutely nothing to do with the ice cream, even though we did do another taste test there.

Then we were back at the library. Denver has a bike borrow program where you can borrow a bicycle for a small fee and ride it to another borrower rack and check it in. It works kind of like Red Box.
We still had some time to kill before we needed to head off to the airport so we went to the Larimer street mall. We bought a few souvenirs for people back home and then to the theater to watch Green Lantern.
Finally it was time to head to the air port. Thank you St. Garmin.