20,000 Steps in Denver and a Cold Shower

Russ has a meeting in a Denver suburb today so I came with him to make it a two day fun trip. just because I am here does not mean Russ is taking any time off, but we were lucky enough to be upgraded to a suite so when Russ woke up at three in the morning to start working he did not wake me because he went out and sat at the desk in the living room. Instead I was awoken at 5 by the sound of someone running on a treadmill in the gym above our suite. Since Russ was out of the bed I was able to go back to sleep by using his pillows to muffle the “shoowoosh, shoowoosh, shoowoosh of what had to be a two hundred pound marathon runner.
After a lovely breakfast of food I have not eaten in two months I was ready to take on the city while Russ was out in the burbs working. I had studied the local city magazine and spotted a number of places I was interested in visiting. On my way out the lobby I stopped at the front desk to see what the situation was with the “shoowooshing” and was told that yes, the gym above was the cause. There are American Idol tryouts today in Denver as well as a few other conventions so the hotel was booked. The manager on duty offered to comp our breakfast as an apology. I took it.
I headed out for a mile and a half walk to the Molly Brown House, you know Kathy Bates character in Titanic. It was not that early, but the streets were full of what looked like homeless people. Now this is Colorado, so I could have been mistaking some fully employed homeowners as homeless, but if I only counted the people with signs that read things like, “I really just want to buy some pot,” there were still many of them. These homeless people have obviously had too much pot because they had no idea how to ask for money. I almost felt like I should teach them, but their attention span’s could not handle a class from me.
The Molly Brown House was fine as these things go. I liked Phil our tour guide, who was probably ten years older than me and kept forgetting his place in telling the group the story of Margaret Brown, as she really was called before they made the movie “The unsinkable Molly Brown.” Maybe Phil had had too much pot too.
After the tour I walked up Pearl street looking for a gallery I had read about in 5280 Magazine (that’s a mile high). When I got to the street number for what I thought was going to be Art and Soul gallery I found a pot shop. I did not go in to ask where the gallery was, but looked it up on my phone. Turns out it is on Pearl St. in Boulder. That bit of info would have been helpful Ina magazine article, but maybe the editor had smoked too much that day.
I continued my walk around the Capital and back to the newly refurbished Union Station where I was hoping to have lunch at a place called the Mercantile I had read about. No luck it was closed for a week so the employees could have a vacation. Wonder what they are doing this week?
I continued walking and grabbed a bite while I did, looking for local stores. Those don’t really exist anymore. Denver has more hotels and restaurants downtown than I can imagine they can fill. The next greatest concentration of store front businesses are health club and gyms. If you aren’t homeless you work out a lot. People on the street are either dressed in yoga pants or tattered dirty shorts with heavy jackets, or are almost naked. This one guy was playing soccer by himself in front of a fancy hotel. I think he might have been the valet, but without a shirt I’m not sure I would give him my car.

After my many hours of walking, grimy and dirty and feeling like I should hold up a sign, I headed back to the hotel to take a shower and get ready for our one night here dinner with Russ. I was greeted with this letter on our bed — due to some emergency the hotel will be without hot water until 6AM. I guess they really want to make me feel like a Deverite. Well I don’t think I want to.