Tuesday 8/26 - Iowa, Nebraska, Denver

Day 1

Early in the morning we woke up to a surprisingly gorgeous view of Iowa farmlands, with the sun rising over hills lined with wind turbines. After stopping at a gas station for some fuel in both gas and caffeine form, Lisa took over driving into Nebraska. It was literally nothing but corn fields, and lots of them. As soon as we crossed the border to Colorado, the scenery immediately changed to rolling hills full of bright yellow flowers.

We continued straight on to Denver, amazed we were able to cross 3.5 states in just over half a day. We arrived in the afternoon, a bit aimless at first, and decided to find out where the Democratic National Convention was taking place. Our first encounter with a local was a pleasant one - he was the first of many people we'd meet along the trip who was happy to give us detailed directions when asked.
We parked and walked down the 16th Street Mall near the site of the convention, which was the most we could experience since we average civilians weren't allowed in. Had the DNC not been in town, the city might have been fairly ordinary. But the street was full of activists and protesters, mostly liberals and Obama supporters, but a few conservative crazies as well, including a small group for McCain, and a larger group of crazy religious people protesting homosexuals and general heathens.
We walked around and stopped at a Starbucks to use wifi and bathrooms, where we met a very chatty journalist who tried to give us tips on crashing some press parties. Tempting, but aside from the fact that we were seriously underdressed and hadn't showered, I don't think we would've had the guts to try it anyway. So we walked down the street to Rock Bottom for dinner and decided to seek out some hot springs in the area.
We found one in nearby Idaho Springs - the guy at the desk was nice enough to let us look around. We went into one of the springs in this cave-like tunnel - as soon as I stepped inside I was soaked with water droplets in the air and too hot to stick around. I'd never been to one, but the general consensus was that the place was sub-par, so we decided to just park at the nearby campground and sleep in the car since it was too dark to try and set up the tent. I was in the driver's seat - that plus the cold made it the most uncomfortable night of sleep on the trip.