One night in Denver

I planned to stay a couple of days in Denver and explore Colorado but my stay was cut short to one night because I had to cut and run to spend time in Chicago and meet a friend in Toronto . This time the California Zephyr didn't break down but the refrigeration on the cafe car did so everyone had free subway !!! . The train ride between Salt Lake and Denver was one of the most scenic and going through the Rocky mountains with its rivers, waterfalls , melting snow and lush tree lines going on forever made it very enjoyable . The Zephyr made its final descent through the hills giving a great view of Denver and we arrived in union station circa 7pm . Me being me I left looking for accommodation to the last minute so I made my way up from the train station looking for any cafes with free wifi and settled down in one Wazee St and poked around looking for a hostel . The hostel I chose was the Denver International hostel which was on the other side of town but Denver has the excellent FREE bus up 16th street mall so there was only 10/15 minutes walk . The staff and DIH were very friendly and it was the standard American $25 a night and was decent value for money with a kitchen for every room , though it was in need of a good cleaning . The only exploring that happened that night was when I went looking for a supermarket and found one 10 blocks away . The next day I got up and went for a walk through down town Denver . Somehow I have developed a annoying habit of coming to a city and finding out that there is a awesome festival or event happening the day after I leave and Denver was no different , the following day the Peoples Fair kicked off ! . Denver is very clean and very touristy but not in a tacky way . It is a student town (which would explain all the micro breweries) and a base for Colorado's other tourism adventures on the rivers and in the hills . The only place I ventured out to see was the Denver Lakeside Amusement Park , you can walk around for $2.50 and look at all the cool art deco buildings but make sure you don't turn up at 3 like I did . The park doesn't open until 6 so I tried to convince the workers coming in that I HAD to see the park because I had come all the way from NZ and I had to catch my train in a couple of hours and got to the point that the girl at reception said If I walked around security would pick me up and ask me to leave , so I set off on my rebellious ways and lasted all of about 30 seconds before someone saw me taking pictures which your not aloud to do and (its a amusement park isn't it ???) and was asked to leave . I caught the bus back to town and had a couple of beers at a burger joint with a friendly local named David . I rushed back to the hostel to pack my stuff and made my way to Union station and I was lucky that the train was running later or I would have missed it, thank you Amtrak for being less punctual than me !!!!!!!