We were in Denver 5 years ago doing all the tourist things, but we didn't have reservations for the U.S. Mint, We managed to get into a tour at 11:00. I don't get it, they are talking about eliminating pennies but they were making thousands of them a minute. Today the Denver Mint has the capacity to produce more than 40 million coins a day. It was interesting, first they engrave it, make a casting, put in the blanks, wash and dry them and then put the edge on them. It was interesting to watch them spit out pennies like crazy but the most interesting part was the architecture and painted ceilings. The building itself is on the National Register. We were on the hunt for a brew pub for lunch. We ended up going to the 16th st. Mall, no cars were allowed just pedestrians and the buses. We walked from the Mint, going past the capitol to the Mall. Had a nice lunch at Rock Bottom Brewing, it dawned on us later we've eaten at the RBB in Seattle several times. Staying at a military base we always ask their mission. They were very secretive at BuckleyAFB. No planes took off like at Las Vegas, Nevada. There were atleast 7 big white spheres, we thought maybe radar domes. There was (during the 50's and 60's ) at Mt. Hebo a big white sphere like that they said was for radar, I'm not sure if it is there anymore. When I still lived in Lincoln City we would drive up there for crawdad fishing. Buckley AFB was the staging area for FEMA, their recent floods took quite a toll. We saw signs of high water but didn't see any actual damage.
October 2nd.
We dropped Luci off at a doggie day care,
we decided to go up to Golden for the day, the home of Coors Brewing. We didn't take a tour, a huge complex on the Clearwater River. The downtown district is historic, all the building having a old west theme. My first stop was the quilt museum, I usually avoid museums but this was different. Gary took off to check out the town while I was in there, One quilt was from the 1800's another 1949 but the rest were challenge quilts, not what I expected but many nice quilts. I walked through town meeting up with Gary, there is a lovely park on the river with nice walking paths. While we were on the bridge three young man were whooping it up, going down the small falls and getting out , doing is again. I think alcohol might have been involved. I did find a lovely quilt shop on the way back to the car. Gary wanted to drive up Lookout Mt. to see Buffalo Bill Cody's grave. The town of Golden was 5400 ft elevation. Seemingly straight up from Golden was the grave. Many switchbacks and tight curves, I wonder how they got the coffin up the road in 1917. Those crazy bicyclists, riding their bikes up 2000 feet, going down sounds like a rush but I wouldn't make it a block. We finished the day at Sam's #3 another Dive, Diners and Drive in featured restaurant in downtown Denver
October 3rd.
The weather had been so lovely in Denver but snow was forecast for Friday, we took off for New Mexico at 10:00 am it was 62 degrees. The drive was lovely, the trees just starting to change color. (Wyoming was several weeks ahead of them) We had lunch at a rest area just before thNM border, finding a geocache of course, it was pretty windy but not too cold. We passed into NM at Ratton elevation 7834. It will be nice to get to lower elevations. We saw several herds of antelope along the road into Las Vegas, NM where we spent the night boondocking at a Wal-Mart. It was a long drive, 330 miles. The wind really rocked the coach during the night.
October 4th
We left LV,NM about 10, still windy but warm, We filled up with gas, we thought $3.37 was a real bargain. We were on our way to Roswell, NM, the alien capitol of the US. The drive was pretty, looked a lot like driving into Sisters from Santiam Pass. A shosrt drive, we got into Roswell about 1:30 Gas was $3.02.
Top: Gary at the art museum in downtown Denver, both of us at a historic bar in Golden and the arch in Golden, we found a geo cache on the post
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