I’ve been traveling a lot lately. It feels like I just got back from the Pacific Northwest, and before that England, and then I’m heading right back out the door again. This should do it for awhile though; I need some rest. But this trip was a little different because I was there for some friends, and it was a quicker than usual, just a long weekend. Nonetheless I managed to cram as much as I could into our short time in Colorado.
Broomfield County
Broomfield County has appeared on Twelve Mile Circle a number of times because of its abundant irregularities. It’s small, really small, like only 33 square miles small. Plus it has a weird history, becoming a county only in 2001, because residents hated being split between four nearby counties. And to top it off, it has an absolutely bonkers shape with tendrils and boundary crosses galore. Sometimes it’s hard to keep track of whether you’re within the county borders or not.
I’ve driven through Broomfield many times. I’ve even stopped there to visit some breweries. Even so, I’ve never spent the night there which is an exalted special category on my County Counting list. Given that, I fixed that problem by selecting a hotel in Broomfield for the first night. It fell within a little nook surrounded on three sides by Boulder County. I had to double-check carefully to make sure it didn’t stray across any borders. Ultimately there were several hotel choices within a couple of well-defined clusters so it wasn’t as difficult as I envisioned.
Jefferson County
Jefferson is the county immediately west of Denver. The easternmost extent begins just a couple of miles away from downtown. But it also stretches pretty far north and south, and some areas at its extremities border on wilderness. It’s quite a mix of suburb, exurb, and rural.
Casa Bonita
Casa Bonita in Lakewood (map) moved to the top of this list when a friend said we had reservations. This has been a Denver-area institution since the 1970’s, and every Gen X kid from Colorado wanted a birthday party there during its heyday. It even appeared as the main attraction in a South Park cartoon back in 2003.
Unfortunately Casa Bonita fell upon hard times during the COVID pandemic and it closed suddenly like so many other businesses. So, in 2021, the creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone purchased the restaurant and completely renovated it. They reputedly burned through tens of millions of dollars. Now the rejuvenated Casa Bonita has a reservations backlog and lines going out the door, but I doubt they’ll ever recoup their investment. Even so, I don’t think they did it for the money.
So we had dinner at Casa Bonita and it was amazing. The food wasn’t exactly fine dining but nobody goes there for the food. The greater experience is the real attraction. It includes everything featured in the South Park episode, and a whole lot more including cliff divers, Black Bart’s cave, mariachi bands, a photo booth, the puppet show, and of course sopapillas at the end of every meal. If you have no idea what I’m talking about go ahead and check out YouTube.
Was it worth it? Totally.
Standley Lake
We also spent some time in Westminster, a town split by Jefferson and Adams counties. We were on the Jefferson side as was Standley Lake Regional Park and Wildlife Refuge (map). I don’t have much more to say about it other than we enjoyed walking around the lakeside on crisp autumn morning. Oh, and there were prairie dogs. That was fun.
Denver City and County
Certainly I’ve spent the night in Denver on many occasions. It’s also appeared in Twelve Mile Circle repeatedly, including Arapahoe Exclaves in Denver and Denver’s Freaky Appendage, plus a bunch of the different travel collections. So I had to work harder to find some new places to explore.
Denver Botanic Gardens
This time we went to the Denver Botanic Gardens (map), which I had never seen before. Recently I wondered if botanic gardens were becoming a thing for me, and I guess this confirms it. The gardens are located practically downtown, maybe a mile or two southeast. We went on a day when it was beautiful, sunny, unusually warm, and really enjoyed the abundant foliage and creative landscaping.
Cheesman Park
Still, we had a couple more extra hours before we had to leave for to the airport. It wasn’t enough time for anything complicated but it was fine for a walk. Fortunately Cheesman Park (map) sat directly next to the botanic gardens so it required minimal thought or effort.
Cheesman is such an odd name that of course I had to dig into its etymology. The park specifically memorialized Walter Cheesman, a 19th century Denver businessman “whose family donated the funds for the neoclassical pavilion on the eastern side of the park in his honor shortly after his death“. Isn’t that how it always happens?
Anyway, apparently the surname derived from “a maker or seller of cheese” just like it sounds. So, similar to Baker or Cooper or Smith, the surname referenced an ancestor’s occupation. However, in this case it happened to be cheese, which is way more amusing to me than it should be.
Time for a confession: we didn’t travel to Denver for any of these things; they were just filler. I’ll talk about the real reason later.
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