Downtown Denver

While we were in Colorado for Christmas, we went to Downtown Denver. I had never seen it before and I've heard about the how amazing it is and the attractions they have. So we took the light rail downtown.

Mckay's mom, Graham and Annie came too.

While there we walked through the 16th street mall. 16th street has a large portion blocked off from cars and it just has pedestrian traffic and a free bus going up and down the street all day. There are tons and tons of shops, restaurants and a mall all along the street.

We ate lunch at Illegal Pete's. It's a burrito place much like Qdoba or Chipotle's (which is Mckay's favorite).

It was muy bueno.

We also went to the capital building

and we learned some things about Denver history and the building itself.

We took turns getting into the old school phone booths

and we stared up at the amazing dome. Unfortunately, we were just barely too late to make the last tour of the day up to the dome. Next time...

And since Denver is known for being "the mile high city," we had to find proof that this was actually true. There it was, engraved right into the steps of the capitol building, "one mile above sea level."

If you notice, a few steps up from the writing is a circular gold plaque marking exactly 5280 ft elevation. Or so they thought. Not too long ago (maybe 2002 ish?) they measured again and found that their previous marker was too high and that exactly 5280 feet was down 5 more steps, marked by the plaque at the bottom of the picture.

The view from the capitol.

And here is Dallin sporting a Colorado Avalanche hat. If you spend too much time in Denver, you automatically become a fan. They are that awesome.