We began today with breakfast at Eggingtons, a highly-rated Casper breakfast diner. Deciding to forgo the Friendly Ghost museum, we got back on the road to Denver. The drive was particularly uneventful, just 5 hours of mainly straight flat highway. Sticking to our scheme of swapping seats every hour helped to stave off the boredom, and before long we saw the high-rises of Denver appearing through the haze and heatwaves.
We arrived in Denver at about 3:30pm, just in time for the start of a tour of the Denver Mint. This branch of the United States Mint is over 100 years old, and is apparently the largest producer of coins in the entire world! Unfortunately, upon arrival, we discovered that the daily tours sell out at 6am every day. What a letdown! We heard that people queue up at the ticket office from about 5am.
A bit discouraged, we headed over to Banded Oak Brewing, a local micro-brewery who specialise in barrel-aged beers. Unfortunately, it was a super hot day, and I was overheating, which along with the disappointment of the Mint put me in a bad mood. We tried hanging out on the patio for a while until I couldn't handle the heat anymore and then moved to the marginally cooler inside. Katie distracted me with a game of Mancala, which is a simple yet surprisingly strategic board game.
After finishing our beers, we headed downtown for an attempt at sight-seeing. We started in Larimer Square, which is the oldest commercial block in the city. There were lots of super-flash looking restaurants, with seating overflowing out onto the footpaths and valets waiting at the curb to deal with the constant flow of Mercedes'.
We walked from there to Union Station, which (like every other Union Station we've ever seen) was a massive grand old building of granite and marble. The centre of the main building was populated by vintage chairs, couches and desks where people were enjoying food and drinks from the boutique eateries around the outside. Katie bought an ice-cream, and I ordered a milkshake that turned out far too sweet, so I threw it out. Having both had enough of hot-and-tired Sean, we walked back to the car and drove to our airport hotel to get some rest before our morning flight to San Francisco tomorrow.