The Night Of The Museums

No - it is not a horror film. Last night was Night at the Museums, an annual event in connection with Denver Arts Week, where admission is free to most of the city's museums from 5:00 until 10:00 in the evening. This year, I decided to skip the major venues, and make a late afternoon visit to the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum and the Four Mile House. Actually, the best part of the Air and Space Museum is the Lowry Beer Garden, seen in the photograph on the left, located right next door, and which looked like it was doing a very brisk happy hour business. It's the one place in Denver where you can sit outside, have a beer, and gaze at the huge B-52 bomber in front of the museum. In my humble opinion, it is probably best to skip the museum entirely, and just hang out on the patio. But there was no time for that yesterday - I needed to head to the Four Mile House before sunset.

I visited the Four Mile Historic Park this past winter, but at the time, due to Covid restrictions, the actual house was closed to the public. Happily, this time it was open. The Four Mile House, the oldest house in Denver, was built in 1858, and soon became an inn serving stagecoach passengers on the Cherokee Trail. It was called the Four Mile House because it was exactly 4 miles from the center of Denver. Once the stagecoach stopped running after train service reached Denver in 1870, Four Mile House became a farm, and was enlarged over the years to become a pleasant Victorian residence. It was fun to see the inside of the place again, the outside of which can be seen in the photograph on the right.

The best attraction at Four Mile Historic Park is, of course, the animals. The place is still a working farm, with horses, sheep, goats, and yes, even pigs, such as the one posing for a photograph on the left. My sister Susan donates to a lot of charities benefiting various types of animals, and she tells me that pigs are among the smartest, and can even play simple video games. Really? Seriously? Be that as it may, nothing like a perfect pig portrait to end the day.