Days 39-40: Edwards, CO to Denver, CO
After a few excellent days in Edwards, we decided we should probably get back on the road and at least get a little bit further east. We didn't get that much further, only a couple hours over to Denver, but we wanted to check out the city. After an easy, scenic drive, we made our way over to the super Airbnb we'd found right off Colfax, not far from downtown Denver. We got everything settled in and picked up a late (but delicious!) dinner from Native Foods.
The next day we started with a trip over to the Denver Botanic Gardens, just as they were setting up for the Gypsy Kings concert. The gardens are lovely, easy to cover in a couple of hours and filled with interesting little corners to explore, like the small-but-interesting succulent house, which doesn't appear to get a lot of traffic, or the delightful little solarium in the Woodland Mosaic section, seen below.
In addition to their fairly large Japanese Garden, we also checked out the Bill Hosokawa Bonsai Pavilion—and realized we definitely didn't really understand Bonsai until now. Their collection includes several native species to Colorado, like a twisted little blue spruce and ponderosa pine, as well as a small greenhouse of more tropical variants.
We spent more time than we thought we would in the Science Pyramid, which is packed with super-interactive exhibits and models, then continued on through the gardens. Their current exhibit of Calder sculptures are interesting, but the Chihuly glass (seen in the slideshow below) outshines them with ease. Side note: we were lucky enough to catch the Chihuly at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens not long ago, and any time there's a huge exhibit of his work, especially in a botanic garden, you should go.
We spent some time driving around Denver, getting to know the neighborhoods and driving by the iconic capitol building, then stopped at City O'City for an early dinner. And, let me tell you, it was one of the most delicious meals we've had on this trip—in a cool space complete with work by rotating artists, like the hypnotizing set of prints from RUMTUM currently adorning the walls.
We finished the night off with a walk/drive around the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, one of the largest urban refuges in the country. Our walk began with a small group of deer loping across the fields in front of us (above), so pretty idyllic overall. It's large enough that you can, in some spots, begin to forget the huge city nearby. Then little hints of humanity and city life peek out on the horizon—in fact you can actually see the Denver skyline in the photo of the car below.
Once it grew darker, we hopped back in the car and returned to our Airbnb for the night, already planning our next little jaunt (hello, Boulder!) in the morning.