Day 41 - Denver

This morning I woke up bright and early after my early night last night and was rather disappointed to notice that it was still raining. After visiting the Starbucks in the hotel I wandered back to my room and had a read of the complementary newspaper delivered to my door – how civilised!! I then decided that it was time to go and retrieve my car that was still parked at the wrong hotel from yesterday. I walked into the lobby to discover that the same person was working behind the front desk. I was rather embarrassed to be back to pick up my car but luckily a large family accosted her before I could so I got to deal with her colleague instead. I explained that I wanted to pick up my car and no I didn’t have a room number to charge the valet fee to as I was an idiot and had arrived at the wrong hotel yesterday. She was really nice and didn’t charge me for the parking at all so that saved me $24 which is all good! Must try that again sometime… I then drove the half block to my actual hotel and reparked Thelma before going out to explore Denver. It is a really nice city. Pretty chilled out and the downtown area is quite small and compact. The weather was still crap when I left my hotel so I didn’t take my camera with me, which I regretted about an hour later as the weather improved and there were lots of attractive buildings around as well. I walked up to the Capitol Building which has a cool gold dome on top and is surrounded by a nice park. I was going to have a lounge in the park for a while but noticed that the only people in it were all the local bums and I didn’t fancy hanging around with them – I wasn’t carrying enough carrier bags to fit in unfortunately. My hotel is really central – only a block from 16th Street which is pedestrianised and the main shopping street. I walked along this and saw lots of people sitting out playing chess and other board games which was quite fun. They also have the cow parade here at the moment so there were loads of decorated cow sculptures all over the streets. I walked down to the Lodo area which is the main area of bars and restaurants in downtown and it was really nice. Lots of low rise Victorian buildings and warehouses and various galleries as well. I was just considering returning to my hotel to grab my camera and return to take some photos when the weather began to take a turn for the worse. It got windy and started to rain again, so I wandered back to my hotel in the rain which is where I am now as the weather hasn’t improved. I have to repack my bags this evening as I have an early start tomorrow to fly to Chicago. Also say goodbye to Thelma too. She has served me well and just has to get me to the airport tomorrow morning in one piece!

Distance travelled today – 0 miles.

Distance travelled today - 0 miles

Bearwatch – 0, but lots of cows instead!