Road Trip Diaries Day 15: I Need to Live in Denver

Hey there. So, I don't actually have plans to move to Denver, but it needs to happen. The seed for this thought first planted itself in my brain when I was here for Lindy on the Rocks in 2010. It occurred to me that of the (then few) American cities I'd been to, this was the only one outside of California I felt I could live in. Vegan food abounds, the roads are drive-able (unlike Chicago), the trains are non-ghetto, there are skyscrapers but the nearby mountains are bigger, the baristas at Starbucks are friendlier than golden retriever puppies, there are parks, there are pedestrianized urban walkways dotted with painted pianos, there are enormous installations of happy, humorous street art, there are blues dancers.... oh, I knew before arriving that I liked Denver, but little did I know how hard I would fall for it.

In a Nutshell: Overview of Day 15. 

Route: Omaha, NE to Denver, CO
Miles Traveled: 532 today. 5,172 total.
Hours in Car: 9 today, 63.5 total. Yes I know this data is redundant.
Coffee Consumed: Caitlin: 1 cup today, 17 total.  Cortney: 0 today, 5 total. Combined: 22 cups

"All desserts are vegan." The best words

 I've ever heard in my life.

 I've waited two years for this. 

Food Highlight of the Day: Finally going to Watercourse Foods after hearing about it in 2010, and getting a vegan milkshake. Mine was chocolate-peanut butter. It was thick- the kind that is a little tough to suck up through a straw, but totally worth it. It could easily be eaten with a spoon. This is how milkshakes should be. Watercourse makes their shakes with coconut milk ice cream, so they definitely have a coconut flavor. I happen to love coconut, so it works!

With my chocolate peanut butter shake, and
some Boston cream pie cake.

Quote of the Day: (in Starbucks)
Cortney: "Can I get a tall iced-"
Barista: "No."
Cortney: "Okay, well can I get a tall soy-"
Barista: "No."
Cortney: "Fine then, I'm just going to steal your WiFi and not get anything."
Other barista: "Ah, he's just being disagreeable."
Cortney: "But that's not disagreeable. That's apathetic. You need your disagreeable face."
First Barista: *tries several awkward grimaces until I approve*

Denver: I want you, I need you, oh baby, oh baby. 

     I really am this obsessed with Denver. Of course, driving across all of Nebraska before getting to it possibly intensified the feeling, but I really do love Denver. I mean, not only do they have tons of vegan food (kind of like Portland), but in the summer the weather is actually good enough to play piano on the streets (definitely unlike Portland). I mean, look at the photo below, and tell me: Does it get any artsier than this?

     Another thing I've noticed about Denver is that it is unusually happy. As I am an almost sickeningly happy person (I spent my afternoon in Denver jumping around and telling my friends, "Let's frolic!!!"), I think I would do very well here. I could be one of the weirdly perky Starbucks baristas- they have personalities and senses of humor and stuff. One guy was fully devoted to lightheartedly teasing me for the entire time I was there, and I probably should have gotten his number. You know, for when I move here and need a cute, happy Denver boyfriend. He got very excited over the fact I was having a FaceTime conference with a professor and group of student assistants back home in Sacramento. Perhaps I just have a thing for cute guys who work in coffee shops. It took a while for me to be cured of the temptation to go back to Iowa City to find the guy from Fair Grounds who had (according to my friends) been flirting with me.
     But it's not just the baristas who are really happy in Denver. Look at these dancing statues- they clearly agree with me that Denver is totally frolic-worthy:

     I think I pulled almost the exact same move last night when I went blues dancing at the Mercury Cafe- a (get this) vegan/vegetarian cafe with a full schedule of dances and dance classes in the evenings. Tuesday is Blues night, and I recommend Googling the calendar for all the other events they have going on. The dance is upstairs, in a large room with a beautiful romantic ambiance and an old, dark wood floor. In terms of atmosphere, this is one of my favorite places to dance. Not to mention that staff come around and pour ice water for you while you take a break at one of their cute little tables by the windows. 

    So, I've already got a built in social scene for when I move to Denver. Dancers are never without friends. What's more, I've even got a potential roommate, seeing as my friend Haydn who hosted us wants to move again already. His car has already been stolen, rummaged through, and parked at the apartment on the other side of the parking lot... a perfect excuse to move downtown by the University where it is way less sketchy and roving teenagers won't steal candy from his backseat. I'm glad they didn't see the Sour Patch Kids in Caitlin's car. 

Haydn: "Are either of you comfortable with scruffing?" 

 I must now go off on a bit of a tangent, purely for the sake of including this entertaining photo. Haydn has a cat named d'Artagnan, a black and white longhaired and very handsome feline fellow. d'Artagnan is not happy about the new apartment and especially about the fact that it is full of boxes. They are terrifying, offensive, and overall upsetting. So d'Artagnan tucks himself behind the TV and refuses to come out. I think he's protesting. We could not lure him out even after several hours, so Haydn and Caitlin teamed up to get him out of there. 

     It worked eventually. And of course, Caitlin's the cat whisperer and they were soon to be best buddies. She has convinced every pet we've encountered on this trip to adore her, it's quite a skill. Although overnight, d'Artagnan proceeded to disturb our sleep by clawing just about everything in the apartment. 

     Cats. 

     But I could live with cats. My life plan now goes about this far: Get into grad school in Denver, move in with my literature-nerd friend Haydn and his easily offended cat, eat lots of vegan food, go blues dancing every Tuesday, find a cute Denver boyfriend at a coffee shop, and be happy and awesome and go frolicking down the pretty pedestrianized city walks day in and day out. 

     I really don't think I need to do anything else with my life. That sounds pretty damn amazing.