THE MILE HIGH CITY

DENVER

After a stressful drive through Denver city centre, where Vicki was outwitted by the one way system and James was flummoxed by the traffic lights, we decided to dump the car and walk around to look for a hotel.  Heading south, we walked past the culture forum and the state capitol and assumed we were heading in the right direction, until the bums and hobos made themselves apparent.  Both the hostel and motel that we chanced upon looked welcoming, had we been a virus of some sort looking for a flophouse.  We didn't even risk crossing the threshold, before turning away and walked east to a more promising area, though to be honest the first impressions of Denver were not all that promising, though we were planning on spending a full day here so hadn't given up all hope.

The next morning, we had a delectable breakfast at 'The Delectable Egg', before going to the Denver Art Museum.  The building, designed by Daniel Libeskind, was incredible both inside and out and the art wasn't bad either, with a lot on offer for people with a variety of tastes.  Our personal favourites were the exhibition 'Sojourn' by Nick Cave (not the singer), where we saw a display of his crazy, colourful 'soundsuits', which was witty and surreal at the same time.  We also enjoyed the exhibition 'Spun', which focussed on the different ways in which material is used in art.  It was very interactive and we attempted to make a patch for a quilt, which started off fun, though we were a little overambitious and so the sewing soon became tedious; we ended up cheating and using glue and felt-tip pens.  We were both ambivalent to the Western art and the Mark Rothko paintings.

The museum was huge, so we ended up spending most of the day there.  Thereafter, we treated ourselves to apple pie 'a la mode' (a.k.a. with ice-cream) and a malt (a.k.a. a milkshake) at a traditional American diner and then went bowling, where we were served by a troupe of scantily clad waitresses, who would perhaps have felt more at home in the neighbouring 'Coyote Ugly' bar.  Vicki dominated in both games and then we went to the theatre (a.k.a. cinema) to watch 'We are the Millers', which was amusing and reawakened an affection for TLC's 'Waterfalls' in both of us.

Food tried:
Butter popcorn: we had this in the cinema, in order to be authentic.  You literally pour melted butter from a tap onto it.  Gross!
Wendy's: fast-food chain, where we bought the heavily advertised (we've become suckers for commercials) pretzel burger. Was nice enough.
York peppermint patty: essentially a Kendal mint cake. Again, nice enough.
Corn dog: Frankfurter inside a doughnut - weird. James added spray cheese to his; made little difference.
Ranch flavoured pretzels: taste of gherkins.  Fun to surprise James with when he's driving and asks for a Sourpatch kid!
Reese's peanut butter cup extreme: a massive wodge of peanut butter surrounded with chocolate.  Vicki prefers the normal sized ones; James prefers none at all!