Woke up in the morning(obviously) and came to the realization that I was quickly running out of luggage space with all the souvenirs I was picking up on the trip.  After thinking about throwing my suitcase out the window and hoping it landed with enough force to close it, I decided to try jumping up and down on it first which finally did the trick after I screamed at it a few times to boot.  My train out of Denver wasn’t until nightfall so I checked out of the hotel and left my luggage with the desk as I set out for a day of crazy adventures in Denver.

Following up on my culture expanding trip to the the art museum from the day before, I decided to make the first stop on my walking tour of Denver the Botanical Gardens.  I also figured I could use some fresh oxygen as I was coming down the home stretch of my vacation.  I was surprised to see the Botanical Gardens had a lot of plants so I headed to the cafe to grab a sandwich from the deli while I pondered this startling observation.  As I bit into the lettuce, I swear I heard a groan go up from the direction of the gardens but it may have been my imagination.

After my stint in gardening, I hit the ground walking and headed over to see a different kingdom of planet earth….the animal kingdom of the Denver Zoo.  I spent the rest of the afternoon introducing myself to all the animals and I found the bears and tigers seemed especially interested in becoming acquaintances but  I couldn’t get close enough to try some of my jokes on them.

I made it through the park just as it started to thunder so I headed down the street a little to the Denver Science Museum and proceeded to get indoctrinated with lots of scientific facts that made my head spin.  My legs were also really starting to spin at this point so I sat down and stared at a really freaky looking prehistoric creature.  After my in depth view of the creature, it was time to head back to grab my luggage and head to the Amtrak station to catch my ride out of the mile high city.

A thunderstorm of epic proportions struck just as I was leaving the museum and I was thoroughly drenched as I ran for the cab.  Nothing a little time couldn’t dry though and by the time I made it to the station with my luggage I was only semi-drenched.  Luckily, there was an enormous traveling retirement party waiting for the train to keep me amused while I continued to dry.  The train arrived about an hour late and we all hopped on and left Denver in our dust.