Classic Trip: Denver, Colorado - Part 2

In Part 1 of our Denver report, we made it to our 21st Major League Stadium by taking in a Rockies game at Coors Field, tried out Denver’s nice but imperfect light rail system, and had a very..VERY…good dinner at the Wyncoop Brewery.

Today is dedicated to exploring downtown Denver a little more and to start our Denver Pub Crawl .

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Again, it’s the E Line from the Dry Creek light rail station a few miles south of downtown and across the street from our hotel, the Drury Inn and Suites in Englewood, Colorado. All the way to the end of the line at Union Station.

From there, it’s just a few steps to hop on the best accessible transit in Denver, the 16th Street Shuttle Bus. These great hybrid buses run up and down the mile long 16th Street Mall every couple of minutes. A ramp opens on the second door back (manually by the driver) and you can park in one of two dedicated spaces very easily. The driver will tie you down if you’d like but the buses are the only vehicles that travel the mall, and they don’t go too fast, so you might not think it’s necessary.

The 16th Street Mall is closed to vehicle traffic, except the buses, and the result is a very nice, mile long pedestrian mall. The shopping selection is a bit bland, mostly corporate chains like Bed, Bath, and Beyond; Corner Bakery; Starbucks and the like but all the good places in downtown are within three blocks or so of this artery.

Alighting from the east end of the mall, it’s one block to the golden domed state capitol building. Another couple of blocks east is the house that the unsinkable Molly Brown lived in.

Our pub crawl got off to an inauspicious start here as we couldn’t find the first pub we wanted to try (I mixed up the address number, we were only half a block away and would get there later in the week) and the second one turned out to be inaccessible to wheelchairs.

Walking back to downtown, we pass the Denver Art Museum, with its giant broom and dustpan out front, and the U.S. Mint, which was closed to tours on the Sunday we walked by.

Across 16th Street, our next stop is the Brown Palace Hotel. In business since 1892, this was the country’s first atrium style hotel. Its wrought iron balustrade and stained glass ceiling hover over the lobby area where afternoon High Tea is being served as we walk in.

The beauty of the lobby and the hotel take your breath away when you walk in. Nook, crannies, and multiple hallways invite you to explore the building. We go in for a drink in the dark wood paneled Ship Tavern.

Afterward, I make sure to get a drink from the old water fountain near the front door that serves up water from the hotel’s own artesian well located 720 feet below the building.

Back on 16th Street, it’s time for a snack and some coffee to take the edge off our pub crawl at the Corner Bakery. Continuing on, we meet one of Denver’s great characters, Denver Robo Mike, as we have drinks at the Paramount Café, adjacent to the Paramount Theater. Robo Mike and I commiserate about how shabby Shaquille O’Neal was treated by the Lakers and other assorted NBA topics. Yes, he was in full robot regalia, including his huge afro. He’s a very nice guy and I suggest keeping an eye out for him when you’re on 16th Street.

The light rail takes us back up to 20th Street. From here, the map says it’s a little over a mile to walk to the Denver Zoo. We can also take the 32 bus…which we just missed…but since the next one won’t be by for another half hour, we start walking. And walking…and walking.

It’s more like two miles and about half way there, the curb cuts at the corners start disappearing. It has turned into a trudge and a couple of hours later, we’re finally at the zoo’s gate.

We’re worn out and a bit moody. Hundreds of kids…who have helpfully been given noisemakers…are swarming the area on field trips. We take a couple of hours to see about half of the zoo before we throw in the towel.

We did get to see most of the birds, my wife’s favorite part, and a few big animals and monkeys before leaving.

At least this time we’re smart enough to take the bus back. Stay tuned for the final Denver chapter where The World on Wheels crew gets to take center stage.

-Darryl

Copyright 2011 – Darryl Musick
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You, Belong in the Zoo...the Berlin Zoo!

(Please read our Covid 19 Statement first - Ed) After a few days of Very Important History touring, we're dialing it back a bit. This morning, we've learned about the joys of menemen (Turkish scrambled eggs) at La Fiamma near our hotel. Then, it's off to the nearest U-Bahn station at Bulowstrasse.

It's only three stops to our destination, the Berlin Zoo, just a short walk from the Zoologischer Garten Station on the U2 line. I also notice that the Hertz rental car office is across the street, which will come in handy in a few days.

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The entrance to the zoo is Chinese themed. Once inside, it's broad avenues and pathways provide easy access for Tim's wheelchair to gently cruise through the park.  We pause at a convenient bench near the entrance to get our bearings and look at the zoo map.

Laid out in a large circle with various spokes running through the middle, we turn off into the primate area first.

The colorful macacques are in the first enclosure while a moping orangutan is next door.

Letty is taken with the chimp mom with a tiny baby on her back.

Tim and I take in the mountain gorillas and capuchins.

A small mountain is full of, what else, mountain goats.

Elephants browse their enclosure while giraffes ignore them across the way.

In the middle is a very large and fun looking playground for the kids with the ever-present biergarten next to that for the adults.

The lions and other big cats are inside their houses being fed so we get to hear a few good roars before their handlers shoo them back into their outdoor enclosures.

Before leaving, it's hot and we have some ice cream on a quiet bench. I look over my should and see an impala a few feet away looking at it hungrily.

Back on the U-Bahn, we head to the other end of Tiergarten...the vast, main, central park of the city...and hike a little along the banks of the river.

Soon, we exit that path into the driveway of a large, white palace. This is Bellevue, the official residence of the country's president, Joachim Gauck as of this writing (Angela Merkel is Chancellor).

No tours are available but we do notice a sign for an upcoming Open House...I guess this is the opportunity to see inside if you're interested.

Across the street, we enter the vast park and wander in the general direction to the south edge, where we can make our way back to the hotel.

First, we pass by the Victoria peace monument and a few naked Germans taking in the sun.

Next, it's through the heavily forested grounds until we come upon a small lake with...what else...a biergarten on it's shores.

We take advantage of the relaxing views to have a little dessert and a brew before calling it a day.

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved
Photos by Letty Musick
Copyright 2016 - All Rights Reserved

ADVENTURES CLOSE TO HOME: Micke Grove Park - Lodi, California

After almost 4 weeks of daily rain, it's nice to see a spectacularly sunny day. Looking for a cheap adventure close to our new home, we head down the hill to the central valley city of Lodi, located south of the capital and just north of the inland port city of Stockton.

Micke Grove Park is a large swath of green, shady recreational land just off highway 99. After paying our five dollars for park entrance, we slowly wind our way around picnic shelters that are designed for groups or large families to rent out for their parties.

We find the parking lot next to the zoo and pull in. It's another five dollars each to enter the zoo. I think we hit it just at the peak, on a Tuesday morning with a few other people, no hordes of school children on field trips, and all the flowers blooming in full glory.

It's a small zoo here in Lodi. The main path that makes an oval loop around the facility is probably about the same size as a high school track around a football field.

We start off seeing a pond full of turtles, then a sleepy fossa...a cat-like mammal from Madagascar that preys on lemurs...and a few birds of prey.

There's a very healthy looking bobcat next to some red lion tamarins.

A large exhibit well away from the fossa holds several lemurs.

An indoor annex also holds some reptiles and hissing cockroaches from Madagascar.

At the far end of our loop, we see a very sleepy snow leopard in his large enclosure, walk by a closed aviary (closed because of California's Newcastle Disease outbreak), and a marmoset enclosure.

Before you know it, we're back at the entrance.  It's an interesting and very pretty zoo. Very small, though, but definitely worth the small entrance fee.

Next door is Funtown.

This is a small amusement park that is open almost every day, year round. We could find no accessible rides or even any that would be feasible to transfer Tim onto. Mostly their just your basic carnival rides like a Tilt-a-Whirl and a small roller coaster.

We wait for the train to cross before we exit.

Back near the parking lot, we visit a very pretty Japanese garden.

Those blooming trees and flowers are making my allergies go haywire.

We see this Japanese bridge over the pond when Tim tells us the charge on his chair is running low on battery power.

Back in the van, we head to the nearby downtown and find Yume, a sushi bar and Japanese restaurant.

Letty has this brilliant plate of sushi...

...while I have the best bowl of pork ramen I've had since moving.

Tim digs in to this plate of katsu pork.

The day and meal behind us, we pack back into the van and head back up to the Motherlode to await our next adventure.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2019 - All Rights Reserved

Stay CALM and Enjoy the Animals: California Living Museum in Bakersfield, California

We've been out to the eastern edges of Bakersfield before, hiking along the Kern River. Today, we've found a new place to visit.

Past the biker bar and honky tonk known as Ethel's Old Corral and the police department's shooting range, along Alfred Harrell Highway, you'll find a green patch among the dirt brown hills with a large parking lot. If you're in the right place, you'll be at the California Living Museum, also known as CALM.

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Basically, this is Bakersfield's zoo. This particular facility's mission is to care for only California native animals that can't take care of themselves. They may have been injured, raised as a pet or any number of other reasons that they can't make it in the wild.

We're talking black bears, longhorn sheep, eagles, hawks, and a host of other creatures.

It's a Friday morning. The parking lot is pretty much empty. I think we might be the only people here other than staff and volunteers.

Looking at the map, there's a crooked path that makes a loop around the zoo. It's well marked with what is and is not accessible. We'll follow that.

First up are the cats of California, the mountain lion and bobcat, but they're not on display today as the crews clean out their enclosures. Beyond that is a large hillside with a group of longhorn sheep that are feeding.

For the most part, they're content with relaxing and chewing although the big ram of the group butts heads whenever he thinks one of the other family members is taking too much of the meal.

Tim rolls gingerly down into a small ravine where a bridge allows him access to cross the creek at the bottom. On the other side, it's birds of prey. Eagles, osprey, and various hawks make up the population of this aviary.

Mustering up a brave face, he rolls into the reptile house to come face-to-face with the six species of rattlesnakes along with the many other non-venomous snakes from our state.

A pair of hyperactive chipmunks tumble non-stop in their cage in the middle of the room.

On to the mammals, which include mule deer, racoons, badgers, and a very sleepy black bear napping under a sprinkler.

It's on to the pond for waterfowl, a barnyard with domestic farm animals, then my wife's favorite spot.

The desert exhibit...half underground and half above...features tortoises, vultures, and my wife's newest friend, the barn owls.

She's specifically taken with one little owl the staff has told us is named Mr. Fuzzywiggles. He follows her around the entire enclosure, maybe mistaking her for a former caretaker or something.

Cleary, they form a connection but, although you can take many souvenirs home from the gift shop, Mr. Fuzzywiggles will have to stay behind.

One final outstanding plate of tacos and sopes from Los Tacos de Huicho, another night at the Springhill Suites, then it's just a quick drive over the Grapevine back home.

Darryl
Copyright 2014 - Darryl Musick
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Pictures by Letty
Copyright 2014 - Letty Musick
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Back to the Streets of Bakersfield - Part 1

What many call Nashville West sits on top of the biggest oil deposit on the continental U.S. west coast. With oil billionaire at one end and completely destitute at the other, the contrasts can be severe. It's the first city of any size you encounter after you've crossed the San Gabriel Mountains north of Los Angeles.

It's not a long drive but it's a bit nerve wracking coming over the Grapevine on Interstate 5. We're hungry, the city is hot, and we go to the first place we always do in Bakersfield...Los Tacos de Huicho where Mexican street food is taken to its highest level. 

A few tacos and sopes under out belt and a quick check-in at our hotel, we head east of town where we visit the animals of the California Living Museum, also know as CALM, Bakersfield's zoo in Hart Park.

Last time we were here, Letty fell in love with a small burrowing owl named Mr. Fuzzywiggles. He's now grown into a sullen teenager who no longer seems enamored of my wife's charms. 

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Tim and I head over to the petting zoo, where we find the food machines out of order, and scratch the ears of a couple of goats. We have better luck feeding the ducks in the pond and seeing the birds of prey in their aviary.

In this fourth year of drought, the hillsides are bone-dry but the Kern River still flows in this part of town. By the time it reaches downtown, all the water will have been removed to be stored in reservoirs or channeled into canals for the local farms.

We have a quick beer nearby at Ethel's Old Corral before heading back into town. They have live music here on Sunday afternoons and we consider coming back for that.

It's hot today, in the 90s, so another trip to Dewar's for ice cream before taking a rest break at the hotel.

We end the day with a big, Basque dinner at Benji's, a French Basque restaurant on Rosedale Highway.

We split a ribeye between the three of us while also filling up on soup, bread, salad, pickled tounge, corn, and French fries.

After that, we can hardly move so we'll call it a day and rest up for a big day tomorrow.

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Photos by Letty Musick
Copyright 2015 - All Rights Reserved

CLASSIC TRIP - New York, New York 2000 - Part 1

Those of you who have followed our adventures over the years know that we love New York.  I'd have to say that, pound for pound, it's the most exciting city in America.  Here is a recap of the second trip we took to the city back over a long Martin Luther King Day weekend in 2000...

Our 2-day New York adventure last fall whetted our appetite for more. We had so much fun that we decided to return in the late winter/spring to explore it a little deeper.

This time, by carefully tracking hotel room rates, we were able to find a hotel in Manhattan. I hate to say it was inexpensive because at $120 a night it would be up there almost anywhere else. In Manhattan, that’s a bargain. We stayed at the Hotel Pennsylvania, across the street from Madison Square Garden and Penn Station.

The flight was on American Airlines into Islip on Long Island with a change of planes in Boston. From here, we took Colonial Shuttle from the airport to Ronkonkoma station on the Long Island Railroad. The train then took us to Penn Station, directly across from our hotel.

One final note before we begin, all subway stations mentioned in this article have elevators for accessibility.

Day One, Friday, was spent traveling. The only thing worth noting is that when we arrived at the hotel, they didn’t have two standard rooms available...we had reserved two and confirmed them with the provision that one had to be wheelchair accessible. Just when it was starting to look bad, the manager upgraded us to the Presidential Suite at no extra cost.

While the bathrooms were not as accessible in the regular sense, the chair fit in it and Tim was able to use whatever bars and counters there were to hold himself up and transfer.

The suite itself was immense. 3 big bedrooms, one big bathroom and two smaller ones, a living room, walk-in closets, dining room and kitchen. We had views in three directions looking east to the Empire State Building (the picture at the top was taken from our room), South to the World Trade Center (RIP), and west to a room in the other wing.

Day Two, Saturday. We woke up to rain and 40° temperatures. The weather forecast on Yahoo had predicted this so we were ready with our wet weather clothes. After breakfast in the lobby at Lindy’s...overpriced with an attitude...our expedition begins.

We walk over to Grand Central Station. Transit could have got us there faster and easier, but we were in the mood for walking that morning and were rewarded with a glorious, if wet, stroll up Park Avenue into America’s most beautiful train station. While drinking in the views of the marvelous zodiac ceiling, we pick up our transit passes for the day and make our way over to the subway station downstairs (access via elevator next to the center 42nd Street entrance).

The wooden walkway of the Brooklyn Bridge

 We get off at the Brooklyn Bridge stop, make a lap across this American icon and back, and head back to Grand Central on the subway. We had a member of our group who, for reasons only known to him, had dreamed of going to the Bronx someday. We board a northbound Metro North train to Fordham Station in the Bronx. From there, the #9 bus takes us over to the entrance to the Bronx Zoo.

While it would have preferable to see the zoo on a clear day, there are still enough indoor exhibits to make a trip in the rain worthwhile. In with the gift shop was a great display of elephants and tapirs. Nearby was the monkey house with dozens of playful primates, probably the most enjoyable of all the exhibits. After that was a display of waterbirds and birds of prey including an enormous Andean condor.

Times Square

 To finish off this incredibly hectic day, we toured Times Square with its blinding advertising displays and dined at a wonderful little Italian place called Sam’s on West 47th Street.

The theaters of Broadway are just off Times Square

Our plans were to finish off by downing some cold brews at Times Square Brewery, but it was just way too crowded.

Day Three, Sunday. Despite a few little remaining sprinkles, the rain appears to be gone and the sun is making a valiant effort to break through. The temperatures remain mired in the 40's but today we shall be dry. We start by having a breakfast buffet at Sbarro’s across the street from the hotel. The price is much less than Lindy’s...$4.99 for all you can eat compared to $11.55 for two eggs and toast...but the staff’s attitude was downright rude. At least in New York, Sbarro’s will not be on the itinerary anymore.

Lady Liberty

We start by taking a downtown train, the #3, to the World Trade Center from Penn Station. From here, we walk along the Hudson to Battery Park...about 8 blocks. The crowds are fairly sparse here today, so we take a gamble and buy tickets for the Statue of Liberty ferry. Once you have your tickets, wheelers get to cut in the front of the line eliminating any wait (a Jamaican fellow selling knock-off sunglasses was kind enough to tell us this when we head for the back of the line).

This is as close as you get in a wheelchair

After a quick ride, you’re on Liberty Island looking up at the statue. Again, wheelers cut to the front of the line but you’re limited to visiting the pedestal and can’t actually go in the statue itself - it takes being able to climb 354 steps to get to the top. Overall, I think you get a better view of the statue from the free Staten Island Ferry than you do on the island itself.

Back on the ferry to Battery Park - we skipped the stop at Ellis Island - where we caught the #6 bus back to Herald Square. Here we dined on some delicious New York pizza though I couldn’t see a name on the place. Then it was a two block walk back to the hotel where we rested up for the evening activities.

Later, another #6 bus took us down Broadway headed for 19th Street. It broke down at 24th Street so we walked the rest of the way. We had dinner at Friend of a Farmer on Irving Place between 18th & 19th Streets. Good food, not spectacular, but decent.

Stay tuned for part two and our encounter with "Dangerous Dan"...

-Darryl

Copyright 2000 - Darryl Musick