Tuesday, July 12, 2022- Denver, Colorado

      Abby had a rough night last night, which means we all had a rough night last night.  In the middle of the night, Abby started crying and wailing unconsolably, and went on like that for well over an hour, maybe two.  She either wouldn't or couldn't tell us what was wrong, but she sure was having trouble.  Nothing Julie would do could comfort her.  After midnight, Scott went out for a drive to see if he could find her some apple juice.  He had to stop several places, but when he finally returned, she quickly drank three bottles of it.  Julie thinks that between the altitude of Pikes Peak and the warmth of the pool water, Abby had become dehydrated.

     The rest of the night went somewhat smoother, but it affected our morning and the rest of our last day here.  We didn't come to Denver with a specific thing that we had to do here.  That made our plans here flexible.  It's why we felt we could take an extra day for Pikes Peak and the Garden of the Gods yesterday, even though it said "Denver" on our original itinerary.  We kicked around some ideas last night of things we could do.  We had talked about the Children's Museum before we came, but that didn't seem to be a good choice now.  The zoo is supposed to be one of the best (but we didn't want to be there when the temperatures were expected to be in the 90s.   Scott had suggested the science museum because there are supposed to be elves and other magical creatures hidden in the dioramas.  Julie suggested the aquarium.  If Abby wasn't going to be feeling well, though, we thought maybe we shouldn't have a big destination like a museum today.  There were a number of odds and ends in Denver that we wanted to see that weren't going to take long periods of time, but would give us a feeling like we'd seen the Mile High City.  So this became an "Odds and Ends of Denver" day."

     Our first stop was Target.  We didn't end up doing a laundry since Omaha, and Abby had run out of clothes.  We got a couple of outfits for her- one for today, one for the plane, one for backup.  We got a few other odds and ends to get us through, and Julie and Emma stopped at the Starbucks there.  Abby seemed to be doing pretty well, so we tried Scott's suggestion next.

     Scott has ordered comics from Mile High Comics in the past because they are one of the largest comics dealers in America.  They claim to be the largest comics website and the largest comics dealer, with an inventory of over 10,000,000 comics and 300,000 books, along with action figures, toys, posters and other geekdom ephemera and collectibles.  Their store is located in a warehouse on Jason Street.  It's not much to look at on the outside, but inside, it is filled with lots to look at.   There are life-sized statues of characters from Iron Man to Sulley (from Monsters Inc.) and Slimer (from Ghostbusters).   Abby liked a Spider-man whose eyes blinked and who must have been 15 feet tall.  Some of these statues looked like they had seen better days.  Doctor Who's TARDIS looked like it was falling apart.  But they were still pretty cool.   Scott had to behave himself, spending wise, partly because we either had to carry the weight in our luggage or have stuff shipped home.  He inquired about a few books he was looking for, but surprisingly, they didn't have them.  He did buy The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Vol. 3, for the plane ride home, since it was written by one of his favorite writers, the Toronto-based Ryan North.  It was fun looking around for awhile at all of the things on the shelves and in the display cases.  Abby was frustrated that she couldn't play with the many toys that were there.  It was a little warm in there, though, and Scott promised we would go on to lunch next.

     Julie searched for a place for lunch using her phone and found a restaurant called, Gaetano's, and it is an Italian place.  It caught Julie's eye because it was supposed to have been an old mobster hangout.  Their menu said that the gangsters that used to hang out there made the place the "epicenter of illegal gambling, loan sharks, and the dark and sexy side of our fair city."  The place did have a 60s era vibe to it.  A large chart in the mens room was a law enforcement chart of the organization with many pictures of those allegedly involved here in North Denver and Colorado.  Julie had fettuccini alfredo.   Emma and Dad had eggplant and chicken parmigiana  sandwiches, respectively.  It was good, but it took a while to be served.

     After lunch we did return to Mile High Comics.  Scott wanted to get another picture of the outside of the store, but he also used the opportunity to buy one more little goodie.  He bought a Funko Pop figure of Cliff Clavin from Cheers, complete with his letter carrier uniform and a glass of beer.  He would have got Norm too, but they didn't have him.

     From there, we set the GPS in the phone for the Big Blue Bear.  He is a 40-foot tall statue that is peeking into some windows at the convention center, and he is blue.  Abby got to see him before she nodded off to sleep for a nap in the car.

     After the bear, we drove by Coors Field and got some pictures as we did.  Uncle Brian has been seeing baseball games in stadiums he's never been to before this summer, but we'll be satisfied just driving by this one.  The Rockies weren't playing until this evening anyway.  We did get a view of the statue in front of Coors Field.  Scott wondered out loud who it was, and Emma said it's just a generic player.  Emma was right.  The name on the statue is "The Player."   Nearby, we saw the front of the National Ballpark Museum.  Uncle Brian would like that, no doubt, but we weren't going to stop today.

     We found the Colorado State Capitol with its impressive gold dome on top.  Scott wanted to get a picture on the front steps where one step is labelled as being exactly one mile above sea level.  Since we weren't going to see the famous row of purple seats in Coors Field that are also at exactly one mile above sea level, a picture on these steps seemed like a good place to show that we were in the Mile High City.  Abby was still napping, but Emma stayed with her while Scott and Julie walked over to the building and saw a little bit of the grounds around it.  After we left the state capitol area, we think we drove by the US Mint where the "D" coins are made.

     After Julie saw the team store at Coors Field, she wanted to see if there was a Broncos store that was open, so we headed towards "Empower Field at Mile High."  They were setting up for some big dance thing in two of the parking lots, so it wasn't easy to follow the signs to where we were supposed to go and we had to ask for directions from several people before we were able to get there.  Once we were in the right lot, we saw the cool statues of a herd of broncos charging up the hill towards the stadium.  The lead bronco in the group is rearing up and posed like the bronco in the team logo.  Julie had to text Uncle John to needle him a bit about where we were.  We went into the Bronco's team store with all of its orange and blue, and Abby picked out a Broncos outfit "by herself." (Julie was probably helping a bit.)  At first Scott was not too crazy about the idea, but he has always said that he has two favorite football teams-- the Packers and whoever is playing against the Bills, so he allowed it.

     Scott also walked around to the far side of the stadium because he wanted to see what the "Mile High Memorial" was all about.  It was actually a miniature stadium that was built using seats from the old Mile High Stadium.   It had a small football field in it's center and signs around it describing important moments in the old stadium's history.  Nearby was a plaque from SABR noting the baseball history associated with the site.

     We were going to have to start thinking about a place for dinner.  Emma noticed that the Downtown Aquarium was open until 9:00 and had a restaurant there.  Remember how we weren't going to go to a big place like that today?  Well, things seemed to be going well with Abby and we wanted one last hurrah before the trip was over.  The aquarium was actually very close to the stadium, so it was a logical place to end up.   The aquarium itself doesn't have as many fish species as some aquariums we have been to, but what made it stand out were the environments that were created for people to walk through.  There was an rainforest area, a forest where the otters were, a fishing village, and so forth.  There was a "flash flood" in the area where the desert is.  And there were s few things that you don't normally find in an aquarium.  We were surprised to see Sumatran Tigers there.  They were very pretty and could be seen quite up close.  After the stroll through the aquarium, we ended up at the restaurant there.   Our table was tucked away in a corner in the "Water Room," and we got to watch large fish swim lazily around while we waited for our meals.  It was quite relaxing.  Abby liked playing with the salt and pepper shakers because they were shaped like sea horses.

     There was no getting around it, though.  The trip is almost over and we've got a short night ahead of us.  Julie has the car basically packed already tonight, and we are going to bed in our clothes so that we can get up at 2:30 am.