My vacation in the US Part II: Denver

The ride from Ankeny to Denver took about 11 hours including stops, if I remember correctly. I was afraid it would be exhausting at first, but it was actually a pretty good ride.

We stayed at Seve’s place in Denver, who was living with her boyfriend Nathan. We didn’t do much in the first evening. We went to a Korean restaurant, and afterwards had a couple of beers while watching the videos HeeRa made in Korea, and doing some catching up. I still often find myself thinking back to the time I spent in Korea, and it was just so much fun reminiscing.

We went to the Garden of the Gods the next day, which was just amazing. I did some souvenir shopping at the visitors centre, and Seve and HeeRa gave me a shot glass and a souvenir penny. We walked around the park for a while, enjoying the beautiful sights. I really loved it, definitely one of the highlights of the trip. At night, we went to a club and had some fun.

To be honest, we didn’t do a lot the last couple of days in Denver. I think we were all feeling a bit tired. We did walk around downtown Denver. We mainly walked down 16th street, which was the main street. There were free buses riding up and down the street, which I thought is a great idea. You’ve got to love free public transportation. We also had dinner one night at Rialto, where Seve works. The food was pretty good, and I really liked the atmosphere there.

We also watched the Simpsons movie at the theatre, which was largely disappointing. To be honest, I actually expected the movie to be disappointing, but still, it’s the Simpsons, so I had to watch it. The show used to be such a perfect blend of sarcasm, satire and just plain silly humor (and even the silly humor always had a hint of cleverness to it), but somewhere down the line the balance shifted more and more toward silly humor (without the cleverness). Just watch the rooftop scene in the movie to see what I mean, it’s just so unfunny that it just saddens me to see what this once great show has degenerated into.*sniff* Ok, so it wasn’t really that terrible, but still a huge disappointment nonetheless.

On Sunday, HeeRa had to start back home early, while my train left around 8pm (though it would be more than 2 hours late in arriving). Seve and Nate took me to Waterworld, the biggest water amusement park in the US. It was fun, though the lines were very long, and 30 bucks is way too much money to pay for an amusement park.

My last dinner in Denver was at the Cheesecake Factory. They made us wait for 10 minutes, even though there were still a lot of empty tables in the restaurant. They were probably doing this to improve their stature or whatever, but I think that’s pretty stupid. In fact for me, that’s enough reason to never go back to the Cheesecake Factory again.

After that, it was time to say goodbye to Seve, and to start my 2-day train ride to the Big Apple…


High Point: The Garden of the Gods
Low Point: Not really, there were maybe some minor annoyances (e.g. the lines at Waterworld, making customers wait for no good reason at the Cheesecake Factory), but nothing that qualifies as a low point.