Denver weekend - Cinco De Mayo festival

May 4-6, 2007


Vishy had to attend this official thing in Denver and the company did not mind if u bring ur spouse and of course vishy's spouse did not mind as long as she was getting to see a new place....so i got a weekend in Denver.

Well the trip started all wrong where we got bumped off our flights coz we were late...so now we have missed a flight in the US also....i thought what a negative way to start the trip but then i laid my hands on this tabloid which was talking about the possible break up of Angelina Jolie and brad pitt....that was positive.....whats the connection....well its one of the celebrity stories that i am addicted to and i obviously don't like them together...anyways...we finally reached Denver....

so the first picture that u see in our set may seem like light at the end of the tunnel but it was more like...baggage at the end of the tunnel...this was the first airport i had seen where we had to actually take a ten-fifteen minute train ride to reach the baggage claim....so if u are ever taking a flight to-from Denver plan for this extra fifteen minutes.

Downtown Denver is one of the prettiest downtown i have ever seen. The city is surrounded by the rocky mountains and that's ur view anywhere u stand in downtown Denver. There is this huge strip of shopping outlets which is also the main road which is called the 16th st mall...and the only vehicle that runs on that strip is the free shuttle. And the middle strip has trees, flowers and benches. You will see it in one of the pictures where we are all trying to give a pose of a happy desi family in the US of A.

So while vishy and the rest of the TW gang was at work i decided to take one of the mountain park tours and our first destination was red rocks amphitheater. "Red Rocks is a geologically formed, open-air Amphitheater that is not duplicated anywhere in the world. With nature as the architect, the design of the Amphitheater consists of two, three hundred-foot monoliths (Ship Rock and Creation Rock) that provide acoustic perfection for any performance". See the pictures and try to imagine the grandeur. And imagine listening to concerts sitting there with Rocky Mountains as the backdrop. Red rocks got its name from the co lour of the rock which is due to high content of iron. Another interesting piece of info....Colorado was named after the Spanish word "Colorado" which means "reddish colored" that refer to the red sandstone formations in the area and reddish brown color of the Colorado River. If you want to read more about red rock amphitheater it http://www.redrocksonline.com/pages/visiting/hist_geo.html

The other interesting thing which was there as a backdrop and u will see parts of it in my pictures was the Continental divide.
The divide runs along the crest of the Rockies, from British Columbia, through the United States, and continues southward into Mexico and Central America. It divides the continent's principal drainage into that flowing eastward (to the Hudson Bay in Canada or to the Mississippi River) and that flowing westward (to the Pacific Ocean). I am sure there is a better way of defining the same but this is how i understand it best.

Well we passed through several other places like buffalo bill bill museum, golden downtown, coors brewery, dinosaur ridge area where they have dinosaur fossils...but do not have too many fotos to talk about in depth. And yes its started to hail and snow in these areas when there was sunshine in downtown Denver.

Few hours before our flight we went to Civic Center Park that ties together the threads of Capitol Hill, and features a neo-classical amphitheater as well as flower gardens in the summer. The park was hosting the Cinco de Mayo festival during the weekend we were there. From the park, you can see the State Capitol to the East, the Denver Art Museum to the South, and the County Courthouse to the West. The North side of the park faces the Denver Rocky Mountain News building and other office buildings downtown. Well we did not have time to visit any of these places but yes took some pcitures.

Cinco de Mayo ("The Fifth of May" in Spanish) - the date is observed in the United States and other locations around the world as a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride. It commemorates an initial victory of Mexican forces led by General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín over French forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862.The festival in Denver is supposed to be one of the biggest of all the cinco de mayo festivals across various states in United states. The festival had an amazing spread of spanish food, music, dances, advertising of Mexican products and services and free giveaways. Unfortunately we did not have enough time.

You will see some pictures of garden of gods in the set which is from my earlier trip to Colorado springs ( not too far from denver) in 2005. Garden of gods is a huge park with about 20 sandstone rock formations.

So here i come to the end of my Denver trip....a state which i definitely want to re visit and go to the rocky mountain national park.

check out the fotos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/gazalphotos/sets/72157600190259928/