February 24, 2013

The Tropics in Denver: Two Free Locations

Posted by jennavandenberg under Colorado, Travel, USA | Tags: , , , |
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I was expecting Denver to be a lot prettier in the winter. It’s gorgeous here in the spring and fall, with tree leaves respectively budding white and pink and changing red and orange. But in the winter everything is just dead. I think I was expecting to live in a Thomas Kinkade winter scene: pine trees heavy with snow, kids skating on frozen ponds, white-capped mountains in the background… Nope. The weather here has a severe bi-polar personality disorder, which means it will be snowy and gorgeous for five minutes and then everything will melt and it will be fifty degrees the next day. Trees and parks will remain dead-looking until April.

Denver winter

Luckily there are antidotes to this excessive brownness. You can either

  • Head up to the mountains where it’s so cold that you eyeballs freeze, but the snow doesn’t melt. OR…
  • Find something tropic in Denver. And no, I’m not taking about fruity drinks with umbrellas. I hate Margaritaville. Thank goodness there isn’t one in Denver. I’m talking about the greenhouse at Denver Botanic Gardens and the indoor rainforest at Denver Zoo.The only picture I took at the zoo
  • Since only part of the zoo and gardens are tropical, I recommend not paying for your admission to these attractions, particularly if you go during the winter. Free 2013 zoo days this winter have already passed, but if you are into planning waaaay ahead, the zoo will be free again on November 4th, 15th, and 21st  The Botanic Gardens will again be free March 27th, April 22nd, July 9th, August 27th, and October 7th.

At the zoo last month I skipped the elephants, zebras and cheetahs and met my friends somewhere around Bird World and Lorikeet Adventure, where it was nice and warm. The Emerald Forest and Primate Panorama also feature inside viewing areas.

On the other side of the park is Tropical Discovery, an indoor rainforest. There are no dead looking brown trees here. Everything looks very lush….except the “temple ruin in the heart of the jungle.” It looks rather cheesy. But while in my fake rainforest, I enjoyed gazing at the fish and turtles, and my baby girl craned her neck to look at an exciting light coming through the water.

The zoo is located inside downtown Denver’s City Park (also very brown and dead looking this month). Being free day, the parking lot and garage was very crowded, and the line of cars piled up to get into the park was long. However the zoo itself didn’t feel very crowded. Maybe that’s because everyone was checking out the elephants and cooler outdoor animals.

Adult admission to the zoo is $12 during the winter and $15 in the summer. Winter hours are 10-4, summer hours are 9-5. Check out the zoo’s website here for more information.

Last week when my parents came to visit I suggested that we visit Denver’s Botanic Gardens, which shocked them because I hate botany. Botany 101/plant identification was the only class I failed in college, and I failed it twice. The first time with a 10%. And I was actually TRYING to pass. I’m sorry, it is just impossible to tell if a leaf is separated (in which you should turn to page 652 in your dichotomous key) or merely serrated (page 152 – an get ready for another equally impossible task). But my farmer father was an ag major, my mom loves gardening, it was free, and I had a baby to entertain me so off to the Botanic Gardens we went.

A flowerIt wasn’t so bad – mostly because I skipped the pools, outside gardens, and ornamental grasses. They didn’t look too interesting from afar (dead, brown, etc.). The greenhouse was kinda nice though. I stepped inside the garden, stepped back out, stripped my daughter of her pink fuzzy snowsuit, and re-entered. It was VERY hot and humid in there. The greenhouse is several stories (there is an elevator) of lush greenness. In addition to various plants that I don’t know the Latin names of (I left my dichotomous key at home, dang it!), the greenhouse has a water feature complete with ducks. I especially liked watching little kids run around with petri dishes, collecting various stuff. I don’t know if they were supposed to be doing this, but they looked very cute and earnest. I’m sure they’ll make good botany students in the future.

I conveniently got hungry an hour after our arrival at the gardens. (My dad said he could have spent NINE HOURS there. Oh, the horror.) If you, like me, don’t want to dine at a place called Offshoots at the Gardens, Three Lions, a soccer (football?) pub around the corner has great bar food. Denver Botanic Gardens are open from 9 -5, and if you don’t go on a free day, it’ll cost you $12.50 (more than the zoo? That’s absurd!) The gardens are downtown at 1007 York Street. Check them out here.  

Less than five weeks ‘til spring!

Spring!

 

February 26, 2012

No Cars Allowed: Pearl Street and 16th Street were Made for Walking

Posted by jennavandenberg under Colorado | Tags: , , , |
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If you are in Denver during a warm summer evening, be sure to traverse 16th Ave. This downtown “pedestrian mall” will be filled with happy diners sitting outside restaurants, tourists banging out tunes on the colorful pianos and photographing painted pigs that sometimes fill the brick streets, and groups of friends laughing from bar to bar. 16th street is capped by the capitol building on the south end and LoDo to the north. To be honest, both of these areas are more exciting than 16th street itself. Free “pedestrian mall” shuttles will help you get from one end of the walkway to the other.

These shuttles will come in handy if you are walking down 16th street on a cold winter day, because you will probably be much less enchanted with the place. There is more than one place to buy tacky “Colorado” souvenirs and the majority of the restaurants are chains, from nice chains (Earls, Yard House) to not so nice ones (Chile’s and, of course, McDonalds). There are also at least three Starbucks along 16th Street, whereas the rest of Denver seems to embrace the “chains are for bikes, not coffee houses” philosophy.

Boulder, sitting 45 minutes northwest of Denver, does a much better job on it’s pedestrian-only Pearl Street. There are cute clothing stores, specialty shops, in the beautiful Boulderado Hotel, tons of restaurants (chains and otherwise) and a plethora of bars, ranging from gritty pool halls to DJ’d dance floors, to upscale wine rooms. Pearl Street is the most interesting at 2am, after all the bars close and groups of twenty and thirtysomethings try to find their friends and cars with varying degrees of success.

 

January 4, 2012

Why I’m Excited to be in Denver

Posted by jennavandenberg under Baseball, Colorado, Travel | Tags: , , , , , |
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Two summers ago I drove from Las Vegas to Albuquerque to Denver. It was around Father’s Day, so my parents flew in to the Mile High City to spend a few days with me. This was extra cool because they paid for a downtown hotel room. I was already really liking Colorado. The drive up from New Mexico was all red and blue and pretty. I ran a race in Evergreen, this cute town in the mountains. White water rafting in Cañon City was a bit scary, but (like all scary things are) very fun. Rocky Mountain National Park of course had great hiking. I didn’t even notice any altitude changes.

But Denver! Or my goodness, Denver was amazing. I usually connect more with small towns than big cities when I travel, but Denver was different. Colorado’s capital had exactly what I like in a downtown area – tons of great restaurants, a main thoroughfare set aside just for pedestrians, painted pianos set up randomly, a system of bike rentals that made navigating the town easy, a revitalized Lower Downtown area (LoDo) which was beyond adorable (in a rugged, outdoorsy sort of way), and the Platte River was brimming with families outside playing and picnicking. Everyone I met was into running, hiking, camping, skiing, and other things that I like. So of course I loved Denver immediately. But I wasn’t thinking about moving here. Not yet.

Then we went to a Rockies game. I’d bought my parents tickets (good tickets) to a Cubs vs. Rockies game. Being from Seattle, we are American League fans, but decided to root for the Rockies. It was a good decision.

Carlos Gonzalez’s first at-bat was a line drive that landed him on 3rd base. I filled in three-fourths of the diamond on my scorecard and snuck a hopeful look at Dad, who was doing the same thing on his scorecard. He gave me a warning look to keep my mouth shut. Verbalizing what I was thinking would be bad luck.

For all you non-baseball fans, I was thinking about the cycle. A cycle is when a batter gets a single, double, triple, and home run all in the same game. It happens very rarely. I’m not positive, but I think the Seattle Mariners (as a team) have had three players hit for the cycle in the 20+ years that I’ve been a fan. I’d never seen one in person.

Of all the four required hits, the triple is usually the hardest for a player to secure. This is why I’d given Dad a sidelong glance after that first triple. 

I’m unwilling to find my scorecard for fact checking purposes, but I remember that the game was an exciting one. It was back and fourth the whole night, with the Cubs pulling ahead and then the Rockies fighting back. Meanwhile, Carlos was busily getting his single and his double. At this point, cautious whispers throughout the stadium began quietly verbalizing what I’d been thinking six innings ago. By the ninth inning the game was tied (as it had been a few times previously). I don’t remember if it was the bottom of the ninth or the bottom of the tenth, but Carlos came up to bat. All he needed was a homerun to win the game and complete the cycle.

The stadium was screaming, but I felt doubt creep in. There was no way he was going to get a good pitch. That Cubbies pitcher had to know that Carlos would be trigger happy…ready to swing at anything.

He got his pitch.

Carlos slammed a walk off homerun and completed the cycle at Coors Field that night. In the midst of screaming, jumping up and down, texting this guy who’d been watching the game at home with me, doing more screaming, filling in a homerun on my scorecard, and jumping up and down some more, I decided that I needed to move to Denver. It was a sign.

So I went home and immediately applied for my Colorado Teaching License. And now here I am. I can’t wait for baseball season to start.

 

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