Denver...and on to Wyomning!

We stayed the night in Hays, Kansas, at a Days Inn. Comfortable, with a great pool and reasonably priced. We set off for Denver right after breakfast. We had a brief stop in Colby, KS, where I broke my Starbucks rule. It was strangely just like any Starbucks, same smells, same type of merchandise (nothing particular to Kansas though). I had a cup of coffee and a cranberry bar and it was ... ok. Not great. Not nearly as good as the cup of coffee I got in Louisville, KY. Now that was a cup of coffee! Frankly, I wish we had skipped the Starbucks.

Anyway, we had a couple of other stops, once at the Colorado visitor's center, just over the border with Kansas and another at a gas station in eastern Colorado. Then, Denver. Even 20 miles east of the city, we saw nothing. Just fields. But suddenly, the mountains appeared, purple and blue against the sky. Then, the city, the vast sprawl of Denver. Man, that's a big city. Downtown is huge, many many tall buildings, and the sprawl of it as it is nestled up against the mountain, goes on and on.

We drove through Denver to Golden, where we stopped at the Colorado Railroad Museum. They have almost 100 train cars, locomotives and other vehicles like hand cars. You can climb on most of them, even though they're quite old. Lots of fun for kids and grown-up men:-). We did not get to go on the Coors tour.

Then, back to Denver for a visit to a booklover's mecca, The Tattered Cover. I've heard of this bookstore for so many years; yesterday I finally got to visit. I bought a couple of books (Twilight and a signed copy of William Gibson's latest, Spook Country) and just enjoyed browsing. Powell's beats them for sheer number of books and subjects, but The Tattered Cover is a friendlier place, with armchairs all over, little tables, and couches.

We had decided to power on to Wyoming, and we booked a room in Cheyenne. We ate dinner at "Historic" Johnson's Corner, halfway between Denver and Cheyenne. They're justifiably famous for their cinnamon rolls--amazing! I can see why people send for them Fed-Ex!

It was dark by the time we got to Cheyenne, so we didn't get to see the change in scenery. There was time for a quick swim in the pool for Older Daughter and me. It's an older (they actually have metal keys with a tag) hotel, the Express Inn, but clean and very reasonably priced.

I think we'll aim for Twin Falls, ID today...