Go West, Boomers! Day 7 / by Mark

Reporting from Wray, CO
LAT 40.5 N LON 102.13 W

(Delayed post due to poor hotel wi-fi)

We’re back to the plains this evening, in a small town. But we started in Denver this morning. While we enjoyed our day there, it’s more soothing to be out in the sticks.

First thing, we drove into downtown Denver to meet our niece Abby for brunch. The fare had a Mexican feel.

We then tracked down mysterious grates in front of the Federal Reserve which emanate strange noises. I’ll post video when we have some decent WiFi.

Onto Statehouse #5 for the trip. Colorado’s capitol building is on the larger side, but the interior seems smaller, with lots of hallways. Their brass cleaner budget must be immense.

Our greatest President—Jebediah Bartlett.

Just outside is a marker indicating one mile above sea level. Unfortunately, they miscalculated twice—Mindy is at the correct altitude.

We ventured out into the burbs to find Estes Mini-Town. It’s a set of buildings from the mid 20th century that have been collected, restored, and decorated. They have “new” items waiting for work to be completed.

We took a header west and made our was to an overlook of the Rockies. This is as far west as we go—everything going forward will be in the eastward direction.

After a great deal of searching, we found the statue of a horse with a hazmat suit on. This is a reference to a nuclear weapons plant in the area which required a massive cleanup.

Our final stop in the Denver area was Mile High Comics. A mecca for comic book fans, it’s a huge warehouse along with a massive showroom. I couldn’t leave without seeing it.

Someone’s getting fired.

Looks like my collection—times 1000.

Then it was a three hour trip to the east, ending up in Wray, CO. The front desk said there were 4 restaurants in town, only 2 were good. We picked a bistro that turned out to have zero signage—I was convinced I would need to provide a password to get into a speakeasy. Instead, it was a second floor establishment with a large menu. We have some Italian dishes—I guess when you have almost zero competition, you don’t try very hard. It was OK, though.

And that does it for today. Tomorrow, back to Nebraska. #gowestboomers