Since I broke my wrist mtn. biking the day before last week’s Lyons Outdoor Games and found myself in the Denver area and not able to participate in the adventure sports that make me tick, I decided to attend TBEX, a travel blogging conference in Keystone, this weekend. I’ve had this on my calendar for some time, but figured that I’d be competing at FIBark instead and wouldn’t be able to attend. The conference starts today, Friday, but there have been tons of opportunities over the past few days to explore and experience the greater Denver area. On Wednesday I decided to have a “wild” day in Denver by visiting: The Wild Animal Sanctuary, Denver Zoo & Denver Nature & Science Museum.
-Also Check Out: “Art & History Adventures in Denver“
The Wild Animal Sanctuary, also known as the Rocky Mountain Wildlife Coservation Center, is a 720 acre refuge for over 290 large carnivores that have been rescued from all over the world since 1980. That is a LOT of big meat eaters in one place! The sanctuary is unique in that it provides large natural habitat areas for the animals to live in large social groups. It operates mostly on donations from private donors and is open to the public 7 days a week. Education about the Captive Wildlife Crisis is the main mission of the Sanctuary, as well as helping those animals that have been found in illegal and abusive situations. It is scary to think that over 30,000 large carnivores are being kept privately in the US! This is just stupid people, these are not house pets!!! I really can’t say enough about this place. By visiting the Sanctuary you get to experience a huge number and variety of large impressive animals all in one place while helping to secure their future and protect the futures of other large carnivores. This is the best wildlife viewing experience I’ve had, outside the Chobe National Park in Botswana.
The Denver Zoo is a premier zoo in the US and has been a pioneer in creating natural like habitats for its animals. In 1918 they created Bear Mtn, the first rock wall and natural like environment in a zoo. This structure still stands today and houses the Zoo’s black bears. I was most impressed by the huge variety of animals and the high quality exhibit spaces to showcase these animals. A lot of the bigger animals get all the attention, but I really liked the huge amount of smaller creatures that captivated my imagination. The newest exhibit at the Denver Zoo is the Toyota Elephant Passage, which is almost a zoo into itself with: elephant, rhino, tapir, flying fox, fishing cat, otter, leopard and gibbon. You need a timed entry ticket into this exhibit, but it is well worth setting aside the time. My biggest advice for visiting the zoo is to NOT go during the heat of the CO summer day, as all the animals are very tranquil, or hiding in cooler places out of view.
The Denver Museum of Nature & Science was the last stop on my “wild” Denver tour and honestly didn’t get enough of my time. I got to take a quick run through the Space Odyssey area, with a ton of interactive exhibits for all ages, and an area of knowledge that has always intrigued me. I also got to see the current featured exhibit “LIzards & Snakes,” which ends July 8th. A bunch of unique live lizards and snakes were presented in quality displays with tons of good info. The gecko is the poster child of this exhibit and was quite cool, but nearly impossible to take a good photo of:) I basically ran through a number of the other exhibits before the museum closed and really need to come back and spend more time exploring the natural history of CO and the Expedition Health exhibit, which looked very advanced and experiential. The IMAX theater on location is always a good time as well, but didn’t fit the schedule on this trip.
I ended my “wild” Denver day with the #preBex #BrewCrawl12 put on by the Turner PR group and the Colorado Brewers Guild. We started at Great Divide Brewing which was quite busy just before the Rockies baseball game and had the best dark beers that I’ve had in Colorado. We then moved on to Breckenridge Brewing which has a full bar menu and is a great stop for dinner and a smooth Vanilla Porter. We then took the LONG walk across town to Denver Brewing Company which has a great vibe and offers up huge hot pretzels to have with your cold micro brew. Freshcraft was next which is a cool little place with full menu and a big variety of craft beers on tap. The crew finished the night off at Lucky Pie, which has an outstanding high quality beer menu and quality gourmet pizza. I had a blast meeting a ton of travel bloggers from around the world with tons of unique stories and interests. I’m also happy to have been able to stay awake long enough to close down the last bar after such a long day out in the summer CO sun:)
Big weekend at TBEX to come and more stories from Denver as well. What wild adventures did I miss in Denver?
Peace, Bryon
