Denver

(Buckley AFB, Aurora, CO) Hi 88 Lo 61 – Today we planned to do a quick driving tour through downtown Denver, just to get a general overview of the city.

When Dee got up this morning she took a picture of the mountains from our campground. As you can see, at that time the sky was clear and cloudless.


Three hours later you can see that clouds have already started to form over the range.


We’ve been told that if we plan to do any sightseeing in the mountains (which we do), be sure to leave early in the morning before the clouds and storms roll in.

We left the base through the main gate and made our way to Colfax Ave., which runs straight west from Aurora all the way through downtown Denver. It was very interesting passing through all the different suburbs with their ethnic restaurants and colorful atmosphere. We finally reached Denver, which was crowded and bustling like any other big city on a work day.

The state capitol building.


Here it is from another angle, showing the beautiful gold dome. This picture doesn't show it, but it really shines in the sun.


It looks like they're doing some renovating around the base of the dome.

We both like large, ornate churches. We passed by this one.


This is an interesting piece of city art.


This performing arts center sure is architecturally interesting.


As we reached the west side of Denver we came upon the Denver Broncos NFL stadium (Sports Authority Field at Mile High).











I’m a big stadium buff, so we decided to stop and see if they offer tours. It turns out they do! We were just in time to join the 1pm tour group. It was a really nice hour-and-a-half tour that included a luxury suite, media center, and the cheerleaders’ locker room (yeah!).


They were preparing a huge stage for a weekend concert by Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw.


Near the end of the tour we had an opportunity to have our picture taken at field level.


It was a nice tour, and now I can check another stadium off my list. As we left the stadium area we had this great view of the Denver skyline.


We took the interstates home, making for a faster return trip. It was great to get our first overall look at Denver. We’ll be doing a lot more sightseeing during the next two weeks.

Tomorrow we have an appointment to have Dee’s car checked at a nearby Toyota dealer. It’s been making a funny noise and we want to have it looked into before it becomes something more serious. We may take in a movie tomorrow. We’ll see.

We added the link to Denver in the Highlights of 2012 on the right side of the blog.