Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Road Trip: Day #6

Today was a busy one! First we made sandwiches (using the Lion House rolls purchased yesterday) and packed a picnic lunch. We headed to Park Meadows Mall, "Colorado's Only Retail Resort" and largest enclosed shopping center in Colorado. There were stores we were familiar with, like Williams-Sonoma, but they were 3 times the size of ours. We spent most of our time checking out stores we didn't have in Spokane like Sundance, Microsoft, Lego and Crate & Barrel. I really had fun in that last store... and was glad we drove so I did not have to figure out how to carry them onto an airplane!
We then bought our RTD tickets and rode the light rail system into downtown Denver and the 16th Street Mall area. Our first stop was Jamba Juice, which was a great idea since it was a warm day and we were planning on walking. After getting our refreshments we headed up the street toward the Capitol Building.
They had a Quilt Show in the capitol building, so not only did we see beautiful quilts on display, but we got to view the marvelous architecture & marble. We spent quite a bit of time just taking it all in.
Isn't the pink/read marble pretty? And it goes so well with Audrey's shirt :)

We headed back downtown and kept coming across pianos in the middle of the street, painted different colors, with people playing or just plunking on them. Evidently they are part of Your Keys to the City project. "On May 25th, seventeen colorfully painted pianos were placed back out on the 16th Street Mall as part of Your Keys to the City, a public piano art program created by the Downtown Denver Partnership. Hand-painted by local artists, each piano has a “Spring” theme and each will be available for the public to play from 8 am to 10 pm seven days a week." I'd say that is pretty cool!!

About this time we found a water feature so that we could relax and cool off a little bit just from the breeze and the cool stone.
Then we headed to Cheesecake Factory where you ALWAYS save room for dessert!

We then checked out a couple of shops including a neat multi-level bookstore. We headed toward Union Station for another architectural opportunity, only to find it closed due to construction. It was still pretty neat to see & was worth looking in the windows.

Here's a picture of part of the gang checking out the rail map carved in the wall outside Union Square.

We made our way to the RTD station, purchased our tickets and rode the light rail back to our parked cars. Continued home, watched one of the Bourne movies, packed the car and called it a night. We need our rest to head back on the road tomorrow.