Denver, CO
I’m spending a couple of weeks puppy-sitting for my sister, who is off on her honeymoon in Panama, with this guy, Ullr (rhymes with “cooler” and is the Norse God of Snow and Skiing). Right now I’m in Golden, Colorado, which is a beautiful little town right inside the foothills of the Rockies. There are mesas and snowy mountains surrounding me, and the town is pleasant and walkable. The town isn’t fashionable, like Boulder half an hour away, it’s just a genuine little mountain town on the edge of the mountains. About ten minutes from me is Denver, which I’ve never liked, and I’ve finally realized why: it’s a Midwestern city that thinks it’s cooler than that. On clear days you can see the mountains, but other times haze or clouds turn it into Kansas City. It’s on the plains, albeit right where they start, which is pretty cool to me because I’m a geography nerd. In fact, one of my favorite photos I’ve taken, which is probably only interesting to me, is this one where the Rockies end and the Great Plains start with nothing until the Ozarks:
Back to my distaste for Denver. It’s trying to be a walking city, like most cities seem to be striving for with the new set of Urban Planners taking over, but there’s not really anywhere to walk to. It has the Platte River flowing through it, but there’s no reason to walk along it that I’ve found. The big walking mall that everyone talks about is just full of chain stores that you can find anywhere else. When I was working in the Rockies as a ranch hand, Denver was paradise because it had the closest Whole Foods and sushi and it wasn’t Colorado Springs, where the worst of Southern California met the worst of Kansas.
I should focus on what I like though, and that’s Golden. Its beautiful creek has people tubing or kayaking down it all summer long, its homes are unique little mountain huts, and it has held on to its past with Buffalo Bill days and a downtown that feels like a slightly modernized version of what it used to be.
In a couple of days, Ullr and I will jump in my sister’s car and head down to New Mexico, a place I have wandered many times.
