Denver: Typical city… Good parts, Bad Parts, Skyscrapers, Homeless, etc.

We stayed in the hotel (Brown Palace) pretty much the entire time and enjoyed the 5-star luxury as i was able to get an early check-in. (thank god for my Marriott deals or we would not have been staying at this place!)

A couple “Photosphere 360” images (save to phone then open):

They even had a leather wrapped water bowl for dogs (oh wait…. that was the ice bucket 😀  Odie needs luxury too right?! )

The local park up the street was LOADED with vagrants on Sunday, it seems they take over the city on the weekends when all the business people go home to the ‘burbs. After being approached and asked if we could “spare a pipe” multiple times, and seeing cops posted up in their cruisers all around the park waiting for something to pop off, we rushed Odie to do his business so we could retreat back to the safety of the palace.

They must kick the vagrants out at night time and not allow them to sleep in the park, because when i went back the next morning with just me and Odie, there were only a handful with a few starting to trickle in every few minutes. These early birds seemed to be looking around for the “best spot” to claim as theirs in the park for the day.

Got a few good pictures around the park in the morning:

I did some obedience work with Odie in a larger field closer to a government building with the least amount of vagrant activity. After a while more started showing up and i had a little homeless crowd watching me work Odie, so i made him “gib laut” to instill some fear in them and let them know we had gotten here first to claim this spot of the park! hahahaha

(They probably though i was homeless as well since we were right in downtown Denver on a Monday morning and anyone that was not in business dress was likely  considered homeless.)

Stopped in Starbucks on the way back, where we also stood out like a sore thumb…. I made sure to pay with my credit card so everyone behind me in line did not think i was a homeless Starbucks addict 🙂

After dragging out every last minute at the palace, we finally hit the road for Boulder which was just a short drive north. Odie did not want to leave the palace either:

Boulder was a cool little college town (big by west standards, small by east standards) situated at the base of a beautiful mountain range. We drove to the top of the “flat irons” and had lunch, hiked with Odie, then sat and took in some beautiful scenery for a bit.

It was nice to have a slower paced day with no real sights to see other than “check out boulder”, we were finally able to take in my surroundings for once and really appreciate them as the previous legs of the trip have been nothing but pictures and go, go, go!