We have had two months to get settled into our new place. Racer K certainly raced to get boxes unpacked. Way faster than I would have but it made life easier to start being surrounded by our familiar things. Not to mention, it made it easier for me to get back to cooking for us.
Quickly I’ve learned that Denver is the land of rainbows! Our apartment looks out to the east of the city and so far we have been treated to a number of spectacular rainbows out our windows. All the ones below are from different days and different storms.
All the rain has been fertile soil for these beauties but they seem to keep getting better…
Since we now live downtown, we’ve had lots of fun walking everywhere. We can walk to the grocery store, which is only 1.5 miles from where we live and the cutest little organic and local grocer I’ve ever seen. Its selection far surpasses what Turnip Truck had to offer. It’s also across the street from REI and another sporting goods store, so we have it easy for getting geared up to explore the mountains of Colorado. We even went on a longer walk to get to the local Voodoo Doughnuts. As long as we’ve been together, K and I have never purchased doughnuts, nor are we likely to again anytime soon, but for Voodoo, an exception could be made.
Same goes for baseball. I’m not a fan but since we live so close and we’ve been given tickets a couple of times, we’ve made it into Coors Field to check out the Colorado Rockies. Our second game was against the Braves and really excellent seats, so that was nice, except that it was so hot, I had to leave early.
It has also been nice for exploring the nightlife. We excitedly walked to the Paramount Theater where we saw Eddie Izzard in May. I had wanted to see Eddie when he came to Nashville in 2014, but a couple of our friends got married that night. I was so bummed but elated when I saw he would be in Denver just a few weeks after we moved here. Thankfully, Denver has so far proven safe enough so we can walk at night without as much fear as when we lived in East Nashville. Lots more lights on the streets and better walkways definitely help. Plus, this awesome view at night from the rooftop patio of our building!
We are also in walking distance to so many festivals! We walked over to the sidewalk chalk festival following some rain and a couple weeks ago, we walked to Civic Center Park to see Denver’s Pride Fest. Not only is the park beautiful but it was the largest gay pride festival I’ve been to so far. We also had the opportunity to check out a local beer and BBQ festival at a local restaurant.
While it is certainly fun living downtown right now, I think I am certainly more of a house person. I miss having my own little patch of green out the door and I certainly miss having more space. We have an entire room full of items we aren’t unpacking until next year when we buy a house and I’m anxiously planning how to get us into the house of our dreams by the time our current lease is over.
Personally speaking, I definitely can feel the difference in the height of this city. Having grown up so close to sea level and in high humidity, sometimes it is difficult to catch my breath here. The air feels so dry but it feels so nice when the temperature is at extremes. However, on super sunny days, it feels like my head will bump against that hot star and scorch my scalp. It is hard to explain because it still doesn’t feel as bad as Florida or Tennessee but hot is hot, despite being dry.That’s just my take on it and 100* with low humidity is certainly preferable to 90* and high humidity. It doesn’t mean I’m going out to walk and enjoy this great city on those 100*+ days though.
We are looking forward to more of our friends and family coming to visit, as there’s plenty to do here and even if it rains, there will be a rainbow following and the sun will be back out in about 5 minutes.