Day 3, a sunny afternoon

Denver is scary. Or at least, the freeway is scary as shit. As we approached town, clouds and heat lightning gathered to the north, and as we hit traffic at 80 miles an hour, the sky opened up and doused all that commotion in a torrential rain. I'm amazed that we survived.

Now it's sunny and beautiful again, like the storm never happened, and Zim has just informed me that Denver has opium dens. I think this sounds like a fabulous idea.

The history of these dens is somewhat disturbing. They started showing up in Chinese neighborhoods in the mid 1800's, which seemed to provide the white population, and the other immigrants, with "proof" of how dangerous and base the Chinese were.

In fall of 1880, some Chinese men and white men got into a fight at a pool hall. Like a match to kindling, an isolated fight turned into a riot and a vigilante rampage through the Chinese neighborhoods. Their posessions were stolen, property destroyed, and one man was hung from a building. Over someone else's broken pool cue.

There's a good chance some of the older opium dens and saloons around here once sheltered refugees hiding from the chaos in the streets. The West may be young, but it still has its ghosts.