Denver

"Arriving in the Mile High City before 8 a.m. MT, the California Zephyr travels through southern Nebraska and the northeastern Colorado plains overnight. Heads up! The train crosses into the mountain time zone roughly around the Colorado-Nebraska border. There is also a little bit of extra time built into the schedule, which means if the train is running on-time into Fort Morgan and encounters no freight interference coming into Denver, it can arrive as early as 7:15 a.m. This leaves passengers continuing west well over an hour to wander around. Denver Union Station is a service stop and operating crew change point, which ultimately means the Zephyr spends at least 25-30 minutes in the station. During this time, it is fueled and a full mechanical inspection is completed as well as other normal boarding procedures (baggage, sleeper car rooms being turned, new passengers boarding). Train #5 currently has a scheduled departure time of 8:46 a.m., so as mentioned above whether it arrives at 7:15 a.m., earlier or even a little after, it will not leave early. The station is shared with RTD - Denver’s public transit (bus, light & commuter rail) - and also hosts intercity busses (beneath the tracks). Located in Lower Downtown (LoDo), there is a ton to do in the immediate area from eateries to shopping, the 16th Street Mall, Coors Field (MLB’s Colorado Rockies), Ball Arena (NBA’s Denver Nuggets & NHL’s Colorado Avalanche) and even Mile High (NFL’s Denver Broncos). Inside the station, one can find a bar, a bookstore, some cafes and the Crawford Hotel. There is really no shortage of places to go, but if you are not permanently exiting the train in Denver, keep an eye on the time because there are no re-boarding announcements made."

"We drove from St. Louis to Denver which was just over a 12-hour drive. We stayed in Denver for two nights so we could catch the Luke Combs and Zach Bryan concert. Our original plan was to camp at Bear Creek Lake Park for $35/night, but when we got to our campsite, it was covered in snow. Wally was SO happy to run around and play in the snow. This would have been our first night camping and we weren't fully prepared to camp in snow, so we called the hotel we would be staying at on Saturday night to see if they had any open rooms, which they did. We ended up staying at the Radisson Hotel for $300 for both nights. We got to Denver pretty late so we explored Larimer Square and got Mexican for dinner before heading to bed. In the morning, we explored more of Denver (Union Sation, LODO, Confluence Park) until we went to dinner at Happy Camper before heading to the concert. Sunday morning we woke up at 4am to head to Red Rocks to catch the sunrise before making the trek out to Wyoming. "

"Next stop is Denver!"