Tour de Denver!

Work. Never fun, right? Well every year the company I work for hosts a scavenger hunt. A chance to travel around town, see the sights, and enjoy day drinking! And who doesn't love day drinking?  Well as you know, in true modern-day scavenger hunt fashion, you must bring along a digital camera to document the places you go. This year we went to a lot of places that are landmarks of Denver. Since most of my friends from the South never come up here, I thought I would take the time to show you a little bit of my town. So take this time to sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. It is my own version of ," Oh the places you will go." Like Dr. Suess but Emily in Denver style.

Let's start off with my very own place of work. I love the location! Not the prettiest building, but it is downtown. I can walk to work. During lunch I can even walk to 16th Street mall. Location, location, location

I was on a team with some people from my team at work. As seen above in the picture. We were going to have some fun, but before we began our journey, we read through the clues and marked where each location would be on the map. This would be our strategy and would help to make us a finely tuned scavanging machine.

What great luck to find out the first stop on our list was the Horseshoe. This is a bar down the street from work. A lot of people go there for happy hour on Friday's. Today we went for a shot of Tequila and a picture to document the fact that we had solved the first clue.

After feeling all warm and tingly inside from the tequila shot we had to move onto the next locale. The Colorado State Capitol.

 It's a nice building with a lot of history, but the picture we needed was of the mile high marker. If you look closely you can see that the 13th step that says one mile above sea level. Exactly one mile. That my friends is why we are the Mile high city at an elevation of 5280 feet.

Fun Fact: Beulah red" is the name of the red marble that gives the Colorado State Capitol its distinctive splendor. Cutting, polishing, and installing the marble in the Capitol took six years, from 1894 to 1900. All of the "Beulah red" marble in the world went into the Capitol. It cannot be replaced, at any price. 

Next stop was Civic Park. The park is surrounded by the state capitol, the denver local government building, the denver public library, and the art museum. If you look at the picture of the capitol above you can see part of the park. This park is downtown and hosts a lot of events....note the tents and what not in the background. I would say there was probably going to be another event that very weekend, however for some reason we were only interested in the trash.

Next stop was the Denver Art Museum. Denver is littered with art and sculptures. This sculpture is the Big Sweep. A 35foot tall broom and dustpan made of painted metal.

The next stop may be one of the best places in Denver. If you love cookies and come to this place, you just may never leave. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the one and only cookie lady. The cookie lady is a one lady show. She makes fresh, hot, and delicious homemade cookies all day long. You walk in and it reminds me of a friendly version of the soup nazi. You walk through, grab your cookies, and deposit your money in the money jar. What makes the cookie lady even better is that all the cookies are 3 for a dollar. Can you believe it, 3 cookies for 1 dollar! My favorite are the space cookies! Mmm mmm good!

The cookie lady is located on 16th Street mall right next to Republic Plaza (the tallest building in Denver.) So now our journey was now taking us down the 16th Street Mall.  Part of the scavenger hunt allowed us to gain extra points by taking extra random pictures or gathering extra trinkets. One extra random picture needed was a picture of somebody in a wolf t-shirt. I took it upon myself to make this one happen!

Next we found ourselves making our way to the Denver Convention Center. The Denver Convention Center is known for one particular piece of art. This sculpture is titled, I See What You Mean and it is a sculpture of a 40 foot Big Blue Bear.

We were having trouble figuring out the answer to one of the clues. So what did we do? We stopped to chug a margarita from a random mexican restaurant. This may not sound like the smartest idea, but remember I am currently on the Universe's side, and the idea turned out to be great. The waiter at the Mexican restaurant was able to give us the answer we were looking for. The clue said we needed to go to the mexican restaurant named for something we wouldn't want to get caught wearing and the bar was also named for the long toothed beast that lived above the bar. Well that bar was....wait for it......CROCS!

Next Stop, Coors Field! Yep, this is where the Colorado baseball team The Rockies play. I love this place! It has a view of the mountains that is amazing! The mascot is a purple dinosaur named Dinger....Why? During construction of Coors field there was a 66-million-year-old dinosaur bone found. So the mascot became a purple dinosaur. Coors field also houses the Sandlot Brewery. What's important about this brewery? Well they invented Blue Moon, and now Coors mass produces it!!!!!!

Another clue had to due with playing a piano. Usually there are pianos up and down 16th Street mall.  Anyone can play. For some reason this day the pianos were not on the mall. Instead of giving up we found our own piano and completed the task. I will leave you with this final picture, and just know that my team won the scavenger hunt that day!