Denver Day 2

There are few better places to get some fresh air than at the base of the Rockies. We have a walkabout in the downtown area.  Our first destination is the historic Brown Palace Hotel.  It's a beautiful grand dame of a hotel. Since it's a Marriott affiliate we explore it for our return on Monday.  The atrium is elegantly decorated for Christmas.

It's a very beautiful and classic property but with the courtesy limo service and the contacts we've made at the Renaissance we elect to come back to it. The manager, Joe, books us into a suite at the Government rate.

Since we've caught a glimpse of the Colorado State Capitol and it's nearby, we walk to it.  There is an engraved step at the Capitol that denotes Denver's status as the Mile High City. The fifteen step of the Capitol building is engraved with a "Mile Above Sea Level".  That's Carol standing on that step.

 

 

The beautiful building bookending the park with the State Capitol is a state and county building. In the park between the two we come across "Posh and Nosh" day.  The chamber of commerce sponsors "food trucks" in the park of two varieties: factual food trucks and fashion clothing trucks.

 

 

Walking to the far end of 16th street we find the 4th best food truck in the U.S. and the nationally renown hot dog joint; Biker Jim's.  This place has the most enticing hot dogs on the planet.  It's been years since either of us has enjoyed a hot dog but this is today's lunch destination.  Carol has the wild boar dog and CJ the elk dog.  Both are scrumptious. Coincidentally, Denver's European-style Christmas market is located here.

 

 

Carol is thirsty.  On the return to the hotel we stop at Rock Bottom Brewery.  Carol has a great cider and CJ a bourbon barrel aged raspberry porter.  He's offered tastes of the red amber, raspberry porter, and Molly Brown Titanic brown but decides on a second bourbon barrel. After randomly walking about the downtown area, we're only two blocks from our hotel. Their area for initiating the brewery process is located in a glass cube in the middle of the dining room. Fermentation tanks are seen on the floor above and behind the bar.

 

 

Still adjusting to the time change, Carol needs a snack around five.  Denver is decorated for the holidays.

 

 

It's a seven block walk to the Biker Jim's restaurant that just happens to be on the way to Epic Brewery and STEM ciders.

 

Walking into Epic for the third time in two days we're greeted like locals. We dealt with two bartenders yesterday. We've only had one round. When we go to cash out a third bartender we don't know who's observed our interaction with the other two tells us that since we're regulars the brewery will pick up the tab for only one round!

STEM is two blocks from Epic. Yesterday Danny informed us of bluegrass Thursday.  We pass a couple of hours sampling hard ciders, enjoying bluegrass music and eating brisket from Bubba Duke's BBQ food truck.

 

Instead of calling for the Renaissance courtesy van, we walk back to the hotel. It's about twenty blocks through a few villages of street people and homeless street accommodations. It's been a second fun day of atypical experiences for us.