On a day that reached 94F in our state capital, we figured the Denver Art Museum — aka the DAM — would be a cool place to visit … in more ways than one.

We left the house around 8:15a for the 1.5-hour drive to Denver. Traffic was light and we made good time. Even with having to find parking near the museum and fiddling with the QR code to make payment at the unattended lot, we arrived before the DAM opened at 10:00a. Luckily, there was shade under the trees. Otherwise it would have been a hot, uncomfortable wait for the doors to open.

The DAM consists of two buildings — the Hamilton Building and the Martin Building. They are across the street from each other. We figured that we could go through both buildings today. Perhaps we could have. But it would have been overwhelming. Instead, we decided to focus on the galleries in the Hamilton Building and leave the ones in the other building for another time.

We were last at the DAM in December 2019 … with members of my family, who were visiting us from Türkiye, and Sonia & Boris, our Denver-based friends. Our primary reason for going to the museum then was to see a special exhibit of Claude Monet’s paintings. Thus we gave the rest of the galleries short shrift. This time there was no specific purpose to our visit. That being the case, we took the elevator up to the fourth floor and worked our way down … spending more time in some galleries than others … sometimes because of our interest in the artwork on display; other times simply because of the size of the exhibit.

When we reached the second floor, the bridge connecting the two buildings of the DAM beckoned us. At this point, we were still thinking that we could do both buildings. It took a mere glimpse of the few pieces in the foyer of the seventh floor of the Martin Building to change our minds.

Once we made the decision to stick to the galleries in the Hamilton Building, we started to retrace our steps across the bridge. We didn’t get far as that was when we noticed that the two dining venues at the museum are both located in the Martin Building … Café Gio and The Ponti. After perusing the menus, we settled on The Ponti for lunch. The food was delicious; the kiwi lemonade very refreshing.

Thus energized by lunch, we returned to our meandering around the Hamilton galleries. Shortly after 2:00p, having already extended our parking from 1:00p to 2:30p, we were ready to move on to the next portion of the outing … ice cream!

If I am being honest, it was the ice cream that led us to Denver today. Our source of inspiration was an article in the “303 Magazine” email Mui receives on a regular basis. The article mentioned a time-limited collaboration between Bonnie Brae Ice Cream and 7Cellars Winery … the latter owned by John Elway of the Denver Broncos fame (and an NFL Hall of Famer). The result of the collaboration … three ice cream flavors made with wine … available for tasting through the end of June.

Of course, tasting these flavors was attractive … but they were not enough of an inducement for a 90-minute drive. Hence the addition of the DAM to today’s outing … and the invitation to Boris & Sonia to join us for a sweet treat. Turns out that the only wine-flavored ice cream Bonnie Brae still had was not to our taste. Just a bit … well, too wine-y. So, we went with some of their regular flavors … tasty and creamy.

A sweet wrap up to our day in Denver.

If you would like to see more photos from our DAM visit, or would like to read some of the additional information that I could not fit in the captions … https://eenusa.smugmug.com/North-America-US-Can…. (For the caption information, click the photo you are interested in, then click “i” icon on the left.)Read more