Our Adventure Saturday night

As John and I strolled down the 16th Street Mall in search of a restaurant for dinner we ran into Assembly member John Laird and his partner, and we had a nice chat. John told us that over 30 California legislators that are delegates will not be coming to Denver due to the budget process. John is on call and may have to fly to Sacramento on very short notice. They happened to pick the same restaurant (the Rialto Café) as we did, and got to see some of what is described below (the police action).

The 16th Street Mall is lined with lights on the trees and shops and restaurants. Many of the stores are displaying Obama t-shirts, signs etc,....yes, it feels like a coronation …No Hillary t-shirts, buttons, or posters are yet to be found. Maybe they will be sold when the convention starts. There are no cars on the mall just a mall bus that takes people up and down the mall for free. There are also horse drawn carriages and people powered bikes that seat two people. All this makes for a really festive atmosphere. We settled on a restaurant and as we sat outside on the rail watching all the people, an interesting thing happened. More and more police in riot gear and guns started to appear and move people off of the street as we watched eating our dinner. They cleared a whole city block, moving people to both ends. This went on for about 45 minutes as we tried to find out what was happening…and then we were asked to go inside the restaurant. And then a couple of loud booms….. The police were notified of a potential box with a bomb in it down the alleyway next to the restaurant and they blew it up. People were calm, jovial and curious about what was happening, including us. What was really eerie was to see so many police all decked out in one place (maybe 50 in all black gear, fully armed).….all a part of the adventure. The police were answering questions and allowing photos to be taken, they were polite but firm. One of the Boulder Police (on loan for the convention) was friendly to us and we joked back and forth as this scene took place. He told us that they expect trouble tomorrow (Sunday), not by Recreate ’68, but by some groups that just want to get arrested “to get the t-shirt” (..I was arrested in Denver ’08).

Upon getting back to the Sheraton, we were at the elevators and behind us we hear a voice “It’s the Bakalian’s “and we turn around and are greeted warmly by Shawn and Marjetka Bagley. They had driven to Denver, arriving on Thursday. More today as more and more delegates and their friends and family come into town….