Denver: "Then and now" photo comparison between now and wayback in 2014

When we drove into Denver earlier this month, we were stunned by the changes. I was briefly disoriented by the new and ongoing construction; the lack of recognizable landmarks. It had only been 19 months!

Roads through empty lots now run through towering apartments and offices. New grocery stores. New restaurants. With around 40,000 more people in the area, places seem more crowded than I remembered. More traffic. More honking.

In 2014, many parks, train stations, and buildings were only recently completed. I can't imagine how people who grew up here, feel.

I haven't found any good pictures or time-lapses of Denver's skyline, though there seem to be plenty

Denver: Home Sweet Home #12

Another apartment to add to the list. Common warehouse type in Denver and other refurbished downtowns, but unlike any we've lived in, yet.

The apartment is in Denver's Lower Downtown (LoDo) neighborhood. A section known as the Hardware Block. Right between the 16th Street Mall and Cherry Creek Trail. A couple blocks from Union Station and the Museum of Contemporary Art. Above or next to clothing shops, bars, restaurants, medical offices, a bike shop, bookstore, and a DIY bar for making projects while enjoying a beer or cocktail. Walk Score of 85 (for comparison, NY City = 89, SF = 86)

 

 View east towards downtown and the construction of what will be Denver's fourth highest building.

 Pro: Nice open space Con: Nice open space. The wall between the kitchen and bedroom stops before

Denver: We're back and here to stay!

What a summer! A road-trip from the West Coast to the East. First time visits to Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Phoenix, Portland (ME), Atlantic City, Buffalo, and Burlington (VT). We tried to make the best of our three free months off, visiting family from Florida to Boston and doing quite a bit in between. We drove the harrowing route to the top of Mount Washington in NH, RV'd around the Salton Sea and into the squatter community of Slab City, island hopped around Maine's Casco Bay in a mail-boat, camped on a hang-glider landing zone in the heart of Pennsylvania, lived on a boat for the weekend in Hilton Head, ate burritos in El Paso, air-boated in the Florida Everglades, canoed down the Schuylkill River, and saw some of our favorite musicians in Philadelphia and Trenton.

Lastly, we sold or donated anything that wouldn't fit in our Subaru (Ebay, Craigslist, yard sales) and headed for Denver; our last and hopefully final city of what has been nearly four years of travel and getting to live in amazing cities.

During these four years we've lived in 9 cities and taken the time to visit dozens more. Of the top 40 cities in the country, we've now lived in or visited 38. At the end of the year we will have been to every state except Hawaii.

Denver: Final post and rating

Anyone who has talked to us recently knows Denver has been our favorite city. But I've had trouble explaining why. Denver is so much more than the 16th Street Mall. More than beer, marijuana, and the Rocky Mountains. It's kind of like dating where it sometimes takes getting to know someone to really appreciate what you've found.

Conveying everything we've found and learned to like about Denver is too overwhelming . It amounts to hundreds of small high-quality realizations instead of a small number of sensational experiences. Even though it's great to visit, Denver is the kind of place that's even better to live in.

After living in each city, we've been giving it a personal rating to track our opinions and decide where we want to settle. Read this if you're unfamiliar with our ratings. Previous city ratings: Philadelphia, Chicago, Dallas, Fresno.

Denver

Culture: 8

Union Station

Denver has a vibrant art scene on par with much bigger cities. There are multiple art districts. Each district with its own character and collection of small working studios. The largest, Santa Fe Arts District has 100+ galleries.

The music scene is equally dense with more concerts and music venues than Austin. It wasn't uncommon to skip a great concert because there were so many other things going on. Red Rocks gets the fame, but there are a number of other great outdoors venues.

Street markets, festivals, dog bars, cat cafes, costumed bike rides, coffee houses, book signings, comedy, theater, independent theaters, local

You know you're living too close to the highway...

Our apartment in Platte Park (south Denver)

...when you wake up and know the weather from the sound of traffic.

When we decided to extend beyond our initial three months in Denver, the owner of our first apartment decided she didn't want to renew. This apartment near the highway was the best that was available on short notice.

Living here was like being at the helm of a boat in a sea of traffic. When we opened the well-insulated doors and windows we would be blown back by an ocean of noise. Not only was one side of this corner apartment next to a highway, the other side also faced a busy intersection. Waking up on a raining day to the hiss and fizzle of wet tires on pavement was almost like waking up to the sound of ocean waves or a rushing river.

Elissa and Michal-ann battle it out at Washington Park

Despite its proximity to the highway it was in a great neighborhood. It was a few blocks from the excitement of Washington Park with its jogging trails, lakes, and paddle-board rentals. There was a train station right next to the apartment. It was a few blocks from South Pearl Street with its shady restaurants, coffee houses, weekend markets, and festivals. A few blocks further was Broadway and Antique Row.

After two interesting months we packed up and moved back downtown. Perfect neighborhood, wrong street.

Denver: Four months in Colorado and going strong!

I've been procrastinating on another Denver post. Every time I sit down to write, I'm overwhelmed by what to share and how to do it in a reasonable space.

I'll use Denver's bike culture as an example:

If I want to tell anyone reading about Denver biking, I could write about the number of people that bike, the great trails, and the extensive short-term bike rental kiosks, but that wouldn't be enough! Chicago has all that; Philadelphia was working on it; Fresno has good bike trails.

In order to do justice to biking in Denver, I'd want to write a whole series of posts with pictures on trails that run right through downtown past wildlife, kayakers, through country-clubs, and past amusement parks. I'd have to describe how Denver is set up to bike almost anywhere and how the towns are connected by high-quality scenic trailways. I'd have to write about all the bikers we see in the mountains on their hundred mile loops and the monthly mass costumed bike gatherings; about the bike to work day and Tour de Fat. I'd have to write about the pedal taverns and the art tours by bike; about the 6-person bikes for rent in Washington Park and the bike shops everywhere.

After all that, anyone reading would be left with the impression that people here are bike fanatics, and they'd be right about some, but they'd be misunderstanding the overall culture. Most people here aren't bike fanatics anymore than people anywhere are car fanatics because they drive a lot-- It's just a result of an active and healthy culture.

We're thinking of living here permanently once we finish traveling-- and no, it's not just because of the beer and the mountains. Here is more of what we like without going into too much detail:

Fun: People here aren't afraid to let their personalities show in everything from their businesses to their houses. Lindsay and I enjoy walking through Denver's neighborhoods just admiring the creativity used in landscaping and decoration. Bars offer all types of entertaining events from connect-four tournaments to square pool tables and adult bingo. Like many other young cities, Denver's population is fit and active. What seems to be a little different about Denver, is how much this fitness is tied to play. The focus isn't as much on appearance or machismo, it's on being outside and rafting, kayaking, biking, hiking, climbing, skateboarding, and long-boarding.

Denver: Funny signs and notices from around Denver

Maybe it's the marijuana smoke in the air, the younger population, or just the atmosphere of fun and play, but if you have an eye for detail, there are quite a few amusements around Denver. Here are a couple I was able to snap pictures of:

Rock on Denver! Or maybe I love you random street-crosser? This could be a coincidence, but knowing Denver, it's probably not.

Ghost Bus: If you know about the mystique and eeriness surrounding the Denver International Airport, you know how creepy this ad really is. Just replace the A with an E and you have: The easiest way to DIE. We're ready to go when you are. Sign me up!

Denver: Home sweet home #5, bison on the loose, a redneck bus tour, and frisbee with the dead!

Third week in Denver and we're starting to get an idea of the city. Denver is similar to a scaled down Chicago in that all types of small, but vibrant, communities exist outside of the main downtown. We've done a lot of driving to decide where we want to spend time, but we keep learning about more areas. Then there are all the nearby cities-- Boulder, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins. All of Colorado's top 10 biggest cities are two hours away or less. Many are so close that it's hard to notice when Denver ends and another city begins.

Couple more notes to add to first impressions of Denver:

-- Austin, TX should keep the title "live music capital of the world" due to its public funding of artists and SXSW, but Denver actually has more music venues. Denver lacks the concentration of open-front bars and venues that makes places like Austin's 6th St so dramatic, but fans of live music won't be disappointed.

-- In California we experienced the spring transition months ago, but here we're back to winter. It isn't cold during the day, but a lot of the landscape is still brown and grey and many of the mountain attractions are still closed because of all the snow. Looking forward to full on spring!

-- I was disappointed with the limitation of the rail system until I found this map showing rail current projects. In a few years, the system will be much larger. It won't help while we're here this time, but it's good to have something to look forward to. The free 16th Street Mall Bus has been so successful they're adding more free downtown buses in a couple weeks. Need to go to the airport? Use one of the special bus stops downtown to take you there.

Some of what we've been up to:

Banjo Billy Tour! What better introduction to a new city than a Colorado style bus tour? From the bus's decorations and sound effects to the attractions and trivia, this tour was fun and helped us decide what we wanted to see more of. The bus showed us sites like Cheesman Park, Colorado Capital, Molly Brown House, Brown Palace, and the Botanic Gardens. Plus, it was on Groupon, so we got a good deal.



 
Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge: We only had an hour, so we went into the museum/welcome center and drove the safari-like roads and dirt paths through the refuge. We definitely plan on heading back to do some hiking. Four or five bison were feeling itchy during our visit and decided to leave the fields to scratch themselves on road signs so we got quite the close-up.


Ghosts at Cheesman Park: Every city we've lived in has spun their data to create a park brag of some type. Denver brags about having the most parks within city limits. With over 200 parks, most Denver residents are close to a good park. Many of these parks have one or two lakes and

Denver: First impressions and why my mom might be right about The Mile High City.

Flickr - Robin Zembrowski

In my post on Los Angeles, I wrote about the stereotypes and rumors people nationwide have about cities they've never been to. Until recently, my mental file on Denver was fairly sparse. Like San Diego, everything I heard was ravingly positive, but there wasn't much in the information to hold on to. Denver doesn't have a Golden Gate Bridge; it's not known for its weirdness or proximity to Silicon Valley. It has the Rockies, but I lived beside the Appalachians for years.

Didn't take us long to find some good pizza!

My mom, having spent a lot of time here, has been a long-time proponent, but I always pushed the city to the background with visions of Austin, Portland, and San Francisco dancing around in my mind. Now that we're here, it seems Denver has so much happening that it's hard to determine where to start. My praise might be premature since we haven't been here a week, but so far we're impressed. What a great city!

As I type this, I'm in our apartment, facing a window. Below is a large park spread along the river with a massive skate park, kayaking chutes, and bike trails that run for miles. Looking east I can see downtown, Coors Field, and the new Union Station. A couple blocks away are free buses that can take us from one end of downtown to the other on the 16th street mall. There are all the typical attractions of any big city like museums, stadiums, and tours, but there are also a large number of smaller bars and attractions that we haven't seen elsewhere. There is a low-key vibe mixed with creativity that allows for downtown bowling, a Bark Bar (bar +dog park), and event filled microbreweries. Open an event paper and the number of options are staggering: sidewalk chalk-fest, comedy open-mics, festivals. The music scene is well rounded with old, new, obscure, mainstream, indie, and more.

On top of all this, it seems like Denver is still accessible. While downtown living in other cities like Chicago and San Diego can cost upwards of a million for something nice. From the little we've looked, it appears it's still possible to get a house for under 300K within walking distance of

We call this juice where we come from

downtown Denver and all the city has to offer. With the city growing like it is, this might be a good investment. New train stations, regional rails, and buildings are going up everywhere. Denver has a shortage of construction workers. It's like Dallas a few years ago or Miami a few years further than that.

Denver has an average of 300 sunny days a year (more than San Diego, even!). The thin, drier air leads to bluer skies and a more intense sun. In addition to drinking more water and wearing sunscreen, it's recommended that visitors watch their alcohol intake. Just like golf balls, alcohol goes further. High Altitude Tips here.

Pot is legal in Colorado and the market is booming. I don't smoke, but watching the market bloom is fascinating. Denver has a store that sells chocolate dipped marijuana and the "apple store" of marijuana downtown. I'll post more pictures of this part of Denver later in our stay.

The one thing we thought we were leaving behind in California was cheap produce, but fruits and vegetables in Denver appear to be reasonably priced.

Finally, Denver police aren't quite like I've seen anywhere else. After only a few days here, we noticed a number of police in different areas hiding behind telephone poles and low walls with radar guns. Once they get someone (low speed areas), they jump out from hiding in front of the car, hail the car to a stop, and give the driver a ticket. Maybe they're trying to make up the money they're losing on traffic cameras fines that aren't being paid?

We haven't made a specific list of things we want to do, but we're keeping our eyes open. I'll be sure to post more on what we find and some pictures of our latest apartment.