Denver Doings

Late last year my brother Andy decided he didn’t want to be my roommate anymore in Springfield and packed up and moved out to Denver. We decided it was about time we go see what the hype is about this Colorado city, and it did not disappoint. After crossing the state line from the lovely Kansas views, we were able to see some beautiful mountains as we approached Denver. We got to Andy’s, or shall I say “the fort” (yes my brother has an actual sheet fort in his room), around Dinner time and decided to hit up the sports bar down the street for a bite to eat. Little did we know it was Trivia night at “Stoney’s” and although we had a late start we ended with a slick third-place finish. Post dinner we hit up a few bars around Denver including a pretty cool arcade bar called 1up (don’t worry Chicago, this bar had nothing on your beercades). After a long day of traveling, we were pretty exhausted so we went to bed dreaming about exploring the big city the next day.

Early the next morning, after we woke up to a flat air mattress, we decided to go for a run through downtown Denver. If you didn’t know, Tyler and I have been runners our whole lives, but after about two miles of running in 5000ft more elevation than the flat grounds of Illinois, the exhaustion hits you pretty hard. Through heavy breathing and wobbly legs, we were able to see some beautiful part of downtown Denver. Later that day, we decided to take advantage of the B-cycle bikes (rent a bike) and bike all over the numerous bike trails throughout the city, $9 well spent! We biked past UC Denver, through RiNo were we stopped at a cider brewery called Stem, we got lost around Coors Field, home of the Rookies, and finished our four-hour biking expedition relaxing at the South Platte River. While we biked, we saw a bunch of motorized scooters all around town, but more on that later. My Uncle Tony and cousin Darby came down from Winter Park to meet us for Dinner where we went to the Hard Rock Cafe and got some pretty cool souvenir glasses. After dinner, we roamed around downtown Denver some more and decided to see what these scooter things were all about. Turns out, this was the first release of Limebike’s rent-by-the-minute scooters and there was an app that showed you where the scooters were left around the city. Although the app initially led us astray and took us places that there actually were not scooter's, a kind homeless man informed us that they originated from Union Station and there should be many more down there. Like any normal person would, we took his advice and headed in that direction where sure enough we found about 8 scooters sitting dormant. Turns out all the scooters we found were dead and we ended the night defeated without a scooter to take us home. Although the scooters were a failure, the stop through Denver definitely was not. We are now headed to my cousin’s new house in Durango, CO., until next time scooters!

-Abby

UPDATE: Denver Public Works shut down the electric scooter program because it was in violation of city code. We were there for the only day they were a thing! If only we could’ve ridden on one.