Day 10 - Final Day on our Trip!

We were tired and ready to go home. We left Colorado Springs and drove to Denver. Along the highway (75mph speed limit!!) was this cell phone tower painted brown and with fake branches so that it looked like a dead tree. Very clever, but still obviously a cell tower, so why bother?


Denver's public transit light rail is called "The Ride", and here's a pedestrian overpass from the bus lot to the rail. Pretty bridge, but we decided that "The Ride" was a silly name. "Hi, honey, I'm on the ride home." "I'll take the ride to work tomorrow."



The downtown Denver skyline:


We found the location of The Taste Of Colorado downtown, but it was already quite warm and sunny, and we were tired of walking. So we drove on to the neighborhood of the "Wings over the Rockies Air and Space Museum". Museums do indeed involve more walking, but its indoors and the fascinating planes and things can distract you from how badly your feet are hurting.

Several developers are doing an amazing job of redeveloping the Lowry Air Force Base that closed in 1994. Some of the buildings are clearly military enlisted housing. Some hangers and such have been rebuilt into "lofts, flats, and townhomes".

Hanger One is where the museum is located. Here are some of the refurbished exhibits:

Hey, they have a P-3 Orion! (model)
And over 400 items of pop culture sci-fi:

This Jaffa (Serpent Guard) uniform was formed out of saddle leather by a local.

It so happened that we visited while NASA had their rolling commercial for more exploration of the moon and mars. We walked through the trailer, but the silly custom photo at the end was the most fun:

Then we filled up the gas tank, returned the rental car, and went to the airport. We used the curbside checkin ($2 per bag) which was much faster than waiting in line upstairs at regular checkin. At the security checkpoint we were "Randomly" selected to go through the new "Experimental" explosives detector. The flight was packed full. Note to self: if you ever fly again, pay the extra money for the "economy plus" seating with more leg room. We arrived home around 2am. Next day we picked up Terabyte from Beth's house. She seemed happy to see us, and apparently the other dogs were happy to be rid of her. Home again, home again, jiggity jig!