August 17-18, 2022
Yea! Sunshine!
While Mike was hiking on Monday morning, I opened the chocolate croissant that we had purchased at the Farmer’s Market and discovered no chocolate. The addition of raspberry preserves did not atone for the missing cacao in the two-day-old pastry. I tossed the last bite of my half and wrapped up the remaining for Mike. Before heading out on Tuesday morning, I halved the cheese/berry Danish. We ate the filling and discarded the rest. Lesson: eat pastries when fresh.
Wednesday dawned with the promised sunshine, renewing my energy. I took advantage to catch up on some writing and family reunion planning. The layout of the Denver VRBO made setting up a music studio difficult. However, I got out my flute and practiced a few scales, attributing my huffing and puffing to the high altitude.
Many years ago, when ED lived in Denver, we spent hours at the old Tattered Cover Bookstore, enjoying lunch in the 4th-floor restaurant. It made me fall in love with independent bookshops and Denver. In my mind, the store was located at or near the old Union Station Depot, in an area now marketed as LoDo (Lower Downtown). Entering the depot on Wednesday, I saw nothing familiar. The space was attractively styled in the fashion of the old train stations. Among the small shops lining the perimeter was the Tattered Cover, but not the one I recalled.
Denver offered free bus rides along the 16th Street mall. To improve air quality, all public transportation throughout Denver was free during the month of August. We found it ironic that the highly touted 16th Street Mall bus ran only a few blocks on 16th street before detouring around the block to avoid construction. Modern bank, office, and hotel buildings lined 17th Street. After several blocks, we disembarked to stroll along 16th Street among chain-link fences, scaffolding, and heavy equipment toward the depot, stopping at Urban Farmer’s for a drink before returning to the car and heading home.
Throughout Thursday we marveled that it was Blue Boy’s 18th birthday!! We celebrated by lunching with a colleague from my days at Good Sam Hospital in Phoenix, Iris. She was as beautiful as ever. She had chosen The Great Divide Brewery in Castle Rock, allowing us to view the southern outskirts of the Denver area. Apartment houses, condos, and single-family units were filling in the gaps between the cities, with hills forcing contractors to space out the developments. Road construction slowed us down in Castle Rock itself. Sitting next to the open window in the restaurant, Iris shared that the small-town feel was being overtaken by the population explosion.
We took advantage of the beautiful day to visit the Denver Botanic Gardens, lush with blooms and grasses. Eventually, the lack of shade and rising heat convinced us to return home to FaceTime with Blue Boy who was busy registering to vote! That’s my boy!
