December 1

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The view from our hotel room.

If I zoom, and then crop, I can pretend that all I can see is mountains.................

Looking toward the south from our windows. 

Hey!  Not only is that older white building with all the windows the county building (see its skinny tower, peeping out at the left end of that gray/beige newer building at right?), but right behind the county building, we can see the art museum!

Who knew! 

Note the curvy cutout in the top wall of the museum.  We'll see it more, anon.

Looking back west to the mountains.

We'd mentioned being baffled by 16th Street ("shopping destination" that is [almost] all the exact same chains we all have at home) to someone who lives in Colorado.  He suggested Larimer Street (just off 16th) as more interesting.

So on the morning of the first, I headed northwest on 15th toward Larimer Street.

The clock tower on 16th, with a matching-color building behind it.

"Pencil" and pigeons.

Tall buildings.  I'm guessing the balconies on the newer one mean it is housing.  I don't know about the older one.

Larimer Street.  As far as I could tell, exactly one (1) block was "interesting."  It did seem to be more local businesses than 16th street.  But.  It was almost all bars and restaurants (not enticing at 10:30 am), with a few high end "design" stores (which were all empty of shoppers). 

A pillow cover that I believe is made of neck-tie scraps.  It reminds me of that tassel-covered thing we saw in the art museum yesterday.

I decided to head back toward the hotel on 16th. 

Denver has a branch of the Federal Reserve Bank, and also has a mint.  I stopped in the Federal Reserve, thinking it was the mint.  But no, it's the Federal Reserve that's right by 16th Street. 

Just as well -- you can't get into the mint with anything bigger than a wallet, and I had the fanny pack, and they have no lockers..............  And you have to have an appointment AND you have to arrive 30 minutes before the time of your appointment (so you can sit around and cool your heels, with nothing to do, because you can't bring anything in with you!?!).  No thanks.  Luckily we went to the mint in Philadelphia, many moons ago, and I don't feel a need to go through all that aggravation to see another one.

Denver has a much smaller and less interesting Federal Reserve than the one in Kansas City.  You can't see where the money is collected or shredded in Denver.  No robot carts moving old dead money around are on view.

Just a few cases with pics of old money, a plexiglas-sided vault with $30,000,000 in hundreds, which you can admire but not touch, and the same sort of little bags of shredded money they give away in Kansas City.

Oh, wait, another plexiglas-sided vault with bags of nickels, and lovely golden bars............

I spent less than 10 minutes in there.  But they do have a really nice bathroom, and a good drinking fountain.  I'm not sure those amenities are worth going through the metal-detector for, but just in case, now you know



Walking back toward the hotel along 16th...........  And after wondering why anyone would go to Denver to shop in TJMaxx, I, personally, shopped in TJMaxx.  (I bet I hadn't been in a TJMaxx in over 20 years...........)

I've been buying myself a pair of socks when I travel, and hadn't seen any I wanted.  In TJMaxx I got a pair of wool knee socks, a pair of wool "boot socks" to wear around the house (just the socks, not the boots!), and I also bought a little shoulder bag as a possible replacement for my trusty fanny pack, whose main zipper was getting ... chancy.

I left my purchases (and my little bag of free chopped-up money) in the hotel, and headed to the library.



The night before, when I'd been thinking about what to do, I looked up the library.  I was charmed to find out they are having a special exhibit on cozy mysteries.

Here's a quote from the page on the library's site:  "A cozy mystery is a sub-genre of mysteries for people who prefer their whodunits to be decidedly un-gritty: violence, gore, sex, and profanity are usually at a minimum. Think Miss Marple or Murder, She Wrote. They typically feature amateur detectives in close-knit, quaint settings and often involve hobbies and/or animals." 

(I had to look up "on fleek" to make sense of part of the article I link to above.  I must be totally out of it -- I'd never heard that phrase.  And -- I'm not sure I needed to yet.  But hey.  If I have to stumble across this stuff, I'm surely glad it's so easy to look it up!)



Anyway.  Cozies are often too cutesy for me, but I always prefer un-gritty...........

She mentions in the article on the library site that contemporary cozies often have punny titles. 

Here is a perfect example of a cozy with a punny title:

The library has set up an interactive activity -- build your own cozy mystery book title.

You pick a folded-up slip of paper from a jar -- jar #1 holds corporate-America-type occupations, jar #2 holds a more girly sort of business, and here are jars #3 and #4.

My ex-occupation was "litigator," my current occupation was owning a millinery, my location was New England, and my quirky sidekick was a clumsy best friend.

I zeroed in on hats, and murder, and came up with Hat's All, Folks.  Now all I have to do is write a book-length piece of fluffy fiction set in New England, with an ex-lawyer milliner/detective..............

I liked the Ladies Fancywork Society hat on the skeleton at the science museum, and I liked it that local spinners were invited to spin yarn inspired by works in the Denver art museum (and have those skeins displayed in the museum!), and I liked that the Denver library invites people to put together punny titles for cozy mysteries.

If this is the vibe in Denver, I like it!



I walked around in the library a bit, to see if I could find the interesting outsides of the library reflected on the inside.

Of course (OF COURSE) the library is full of indigent persons.  It's warm, it's free, what's not to love.

So one doesn't like to wake them, by wandering through where they are sleeping.

I left rather sooner than I'd thought  might.



There are some places where the things that are *different* about the outsides of the library are reflected inside.

I didn't see as many as I'd thought I might, but maybe that's because I left the field of honor to those who -- needed a warm place to sleep.



Looking across at the art museum.  In this light, Farquod's castle is much paler........

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