Rocky Mountain NYC

Hit a Rockies game, an Avalanche game, visit the Tattered Cover, go skiing, hop over to RMNP, go climbing at Table Mountain, or just wander around downtown. You'll also have no problem finding a show of your favorite bands in town, and you can even check out the Red Rocks Amphitheater.

Quick Tips:

Best Way To Get Around:

Public transportation is quite good here: take a bus or a taxi and you'll find yourself where you want to be in short time.

Bizarre.

Casa Bonita is a theme park disguised as a mexican restaurant. Or a mexican restaurant described as a theme park.

After you get there, you are whisked into a long line, just like those you stand in at Magic Mountain, and you sit there until you order. The food is kind of gross, but that's not the point. The point is the dining experience.

I'm not even going to try to explain it all, but I'll list a few things you'll see inside:

Indoor cliff divers jumping off of artificial lava rocks 30 feet high and landing in a deep pool. You'll also see a man in a gorilla suit doing the same thing. You might dine inside a mine, in a vineyard, in a palace, or some other highly stylized setting. You can see cheesy comedy routines, puppet shows, and you might find yourself playing pinball in an arcade room.

This is one of those must see restaurants in Denver.

Table Mountain is the closest outdoor climbing area to Denver, probably about 20 minutes in the car, and it's also one of the densest sport climbing regions in the entire front range. It's worth a stop for a day day or two, but don't go on the weekends. It's packed with weekend warriors, and lines begin to form at the base of the climbs.

The rock there is basalt, very hard and frictiony, and the vast majority of the climbing is sport. Don't even bother bringing any trad gear: a rope and 15 draws will suffice. The climbing is generally difficult and technical, not too pumpy, and very thin. And urban.

It's strange to climb a route and instead of turning around for some grand natural vista, you're greeted with... the Coors Brewery, and you take a deep breath of... Hops? Yep, you're smelling hops. Smells like beer! You'll also see suburbia and cars and freeways and the roar of Golden, Colorado, but it's unique at least, and after you've pumped yourself silly, it's worth a trip down to the brewery for a tour and a free sample. The Access Fund has recently purchased the climbing area, so there aren't too many issues surrounding access, just pack in what you pack out, be mindful of the surroundings, and have fun.

Try these routes:
This Aint Naturita, Pilgrim (5.9)
Fabulous Flying Carr's Route (5.11a)
Bullet the Brown Cloud (5.11a)

Denver's Tattered Covers are among the best bookstores in the world. They're 5 stories high of nothing but books, every single book you've ever thought of reading. If you go to the Tattered Cover at Cherry Creek, be sure to dine at the Fourth Story Restaurant, at the top of the store. You'll be surrounded by books, pictures of authors, and they claim you'll be able to see Pike's Peak in Colorado Springs on a clear day. Instead of candles, you'll have reading lamps.

Red Rocks is an interesting place to catch a show if you're in the Denver area, mainly because of its location. The amphitheater is a natural sandstone amphitheater buried in a city park. It's not your normal concert experience, stuffed into a giant arena beneath an ugly man-made roof: instead, it's a truly unique, indescribable outdoor music arena. Definitely worth a visit!

Denver International Airport is an experience to behold, and kind of fun. Strange. Outlandish. Preposterous, even.

It seems that the city spend several million dollars building an automated baggage handling system at their airport, which is, I might add, not exactly in Denver anyway -- it's on the city's outskirts, nearly an hour away from downtown! You'll arrive at the terminal, check in, and find yourself on an underground subway to your gate. Inside the subway, you'll see things hanging from the walls of the tunnel to keep you entertained, such as entire rows of pinwheels. A cheesy automated voice warns you of stops and starts, and it gets aggravating after a little while. It's one of those relaxed voices that tries to calm you down even though you're already late and you're feeling claustrophobic, a voice which only serves to irritate you more. Disembarking the subway, you might find yourself in a large amphitheater filled with shops. Shops everywhere, the strangest shops you'd never expect in an airport, tie shops, cookie shops, watch stores, sunglass shops. You might pick up your friends at their gate and take them to baggage claim, where the multimillion dollar baggage handling system may have already lost their bags, or in my case once upon a time, actually tore them up and spit their contents all over some room in the middle of DIA. If you're lucky, you'll find your stuff, and subway your way back to the parking lot, and then drive for another hour to get to where you're actually trying to go.

Try not to get stuck in DIA.