I’ve only been to Denver twice as an adult, both times for volleyball tournaments. I’ve spent hours and hours at the Denver Convention Center with its big blue bear (which I never thought to photograph) and laughing escalator (which is supposed to be joyful, I guess, but it sounds haunted). Beyond that, we’ve never had time to see much of the city.

That said, I find Denver kind of boring. It’s got a very sporty, corporate vibe that doesn’t speak to me at all and compared to real tourist spots like Durango or Salt Lake City, there’s not much unique or interesting to see between games. We did find a couple museums to roam around, though, and that was fun.

We checked into the Hyatt and found there was a tiny firefighter museum right around the corner. We could see it from our window. Our team was on the “afternoon shift” of the tournament so we had several hours to kill Saturday morning, and this museum was our first stop after Starbucks. It was simply lovely; the best small museum I’ve been to in ages. They had a nice selection of historical firefighter equipment, simple informative displays for things like historical tools and breathing apparatus, and interesting stories about Denver’s biggest fires and most interesting events. The staff were also super happy and enthusiastic without being intrusive about it. We both had a great time, and if you’re ever near the convention center I highly recommend spending a few minutes at this museum.

As you can see in the first picture, the rest of our view wasn’t that pretty, but Denver does have some of the cool historical architecture I love looking at. Denver’s historical buildings are more mixed in style, it seems, than El Paso or Phoenix, and there are more buildings with blocky, rough hewn vibes. They were interesting to look at, and once again I find myself wishing I knew more about architecture so I could really tell what I’m looking at.

Okay, that Sheraton doesn’t look historical. It’s probably Brutalist or something similarly modern. I really like the geometric screen effect on it, though. It looks like hundreds of little cubby holes that should hold little treasures and curios. They probably hold pigeons more often than not.

In our wandering around looking at buildings, we ended up near the Denver Mint (not open for tours on the weekend), the main branch of the public library, and the Denver Art Museum. We still had a couple hours to kill so we decided to look at some art. It’s quite a large museum so we only properly looked at maybe half of it. They have quite a lot of contemporary art and a lot of smaller exhibits focused on different time periods and different areas of the world. My favorite parts were a gallery devoted to unusual materials and textures, and their collection of art from various parts of Asia. They also had some lovely small sections devoted to Oceania and the civilizations of the Pacific Northwest. Photography was allowed without flash but the museum was pretty busy so I only took a handful of quick shots. I never want to be rude or intrusive when other people are trying to enjoy the museum.

The museum had a large gift shop full of pretty things, but we confined ourselves to a couple of souvenir pins and a lovely piece of glass art by Arlyss Grosz. There were several to choose from and all of them were sparkly and sweet, but I chose a winter scene that looked a bit like melting snowflakes around the edges. I love the blue stripe at the base that looks like a river flowing through the forest, or maybe a frozen path for you to walk through the glistening trees. As usual, my terrible photographs don’t really do it justice, but they do show a bit of how it changes with the light.

I’m once again reminded that first, in spite of visiting museums my entire life I know very little about fine art, and second, I really love simple things that ride the line between art and craft. But that is a post for another day. For now, those were the highlights of our trip to Denver. The tournament itself was enormous, with dozens of courts playing at once, and our team did reasonably well and got valuable experience but didn’t come home with any medals. My daughter turned 15 on Monday, but most of the day was taken up with volleyball and the long drive home so we’re doing most of her celebrating this weekend. Until then, I hope you have a creative and interesting week. –Corvus