Denver Labor Day Fly In

[moderne]

  Spent the holiday weekend in Denver.  Flew into Centennial Airport south of the Tech Center at I-25 and 470.  Very large for a general aviation airport, as if Wheeler Downtown, JoCo Executive, and New Century were all combined and next to Corporate Woods.  Stayed DT at the Warwick, which I would highly recommend. It is at the southeast corner of DT, where DT runs into Capitol Hill and Midtown.  Huge 500 square foot rooms all with balcony.  Asked for west facing room and got panoramic view of DT and Rocky Mountains.  Weather so fine, every meal I had was outdoors.  17th Street becoming quite a restaurant row.  Would recommend Stuebens, an upscale diner, and Limon, a Peruvian bistro. Taste of Denver was going on, Colfax blocked off for it.  Spent Sunday in the mountains and was distressed at the extent of forest death since I had been in the mountains last about 5 years ago.  Seems like the pine beetles have killed half the trees and the aspens are taking over.  Wondered about the fire hazard of all the dead wood, and then when we left Centenial saw the northern horizon blocked by the low lying smoke of the Boulder fires.

[moderne]

Forgot to add a couple tidbits:  Lots of news coverage of gang problems and general drunkeness problems in LoDo.  Also saw a promo in the hotel mag calling the Denver Art Museum "the largest art museum between Kansas City and the West Coast."  At least there is still something the Denver must defer to KC.

[LenexatoKCMO]

 Spent Sunday in the mountains and was distressed at the extent of forest death since I had been in the mountains last about 5 years ago.  Seems like the pine beetles have killed half the trees and the aspens are taking over. 

Its actually starting to look a little better than it did a couple years ago - most of the bright red dead pine needles have fallen off leaving just the brown limbs and trunks.  Its not quite as jarring visually.