Megan Nyce is begging her Park Hill neighbors to show off their kitties.
Nyce has two cats, Lloyd and Harry. Yes, they are named after the “Dumb and Dumber” characters. Yes, they wear corresponding orange and blue bowties.
With these credentials, it is no surprise this crazy cat lady is behind the third annual a free walking tour of the northeast Denver neighborhood, during which participants — who must RSVP — stop to meet and sometimes greet local felines and their owners.
On Sunday, hundreds of cat enthusiasts will scamper through the neighborhood admiring housecats from their window perches and more adventurous felines from front lawns as their owners regale the captivated crowd with their cats’ stats. The tour groups do not venture inside people’s homes but merely revere from the sidewalk, unless invited onto the front lawn for scritches.
“It’s a little bit like seeing some sort of exotic animal they’ve never seen before,” Nyce said. “People ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ and ‘ohhh’ and take pictures. Someone signing up this year said this was their third year doing it and that it’s one of the best days of their life.”
The tour has exploded in paw-pularity. More than 200 people registered this year, forcing Nyce to close RSVPs so as not to anger local authorities when she leads hordes of cat people through the neighborhood, she said.
“Last year, there were so many people that it was causing traffic issues,” Nyce said.
However, the tour is still welcoming additional cats to showcase, so if any Park Hill kitties want to badger their opposable-thumbed owners to sign them up for stardom, they can find more information at
Nyce was inspired to bring the event to Park Hill after seeing similar cat tours in
She’s organized eccentric events previously. She hosted a local show where people read their teen diaries on stage called and built an escape room at Burning Man, so a cat tour seemed right up her alleycat.
Leah Haverhals attended the cat tour last year and is now signed up to showcase her four-legged, one-eyed daughter Pinkie.
Haverhals relished the tour’s whimsy and particularly enjoyed giving housecats their flowers. Indoor cats, she said, are such a mystery, cloistered in their homes doing who knows what all day. To shed some light and much-deserved praise on the mysterious beasts, she said, was a delight.
“I think we need more silly, fun things to bring people together in these crazy times,” Haverhals said.
The public clearly agrees.
The event has grown so expeditiously that this year Nyce recruited former Park Hill cat showcaser David Obuchowski as a second tour guide.
Obuchowski, father of Captain Calvin Marshmallow, who was featured on last year’s tour, will lead his crew alongside his human daughter.
Captain Calvin Marshmallow is a rescued Norwegian Forest Cat who weighed 17 pounds at his last check-up but has likely put on a few pounds since, Obuchowski said.
“He’s so handsome,” he said. “He rules. He has big, huge paws. Murder mitts… I just am insane about cats.”
Nyce and Obuchowski have walked Park Hill in recent weeks on the hunt for signs of housecats. A visible cat tower or a bird feeder near a window means the inhabitants of that house are getting a postcard from the duo that reads “show me your kitties” with information on the event.
Since presenting Captain Calvin Marshmallow to the neighborhood, Obuchowski said he’s met so many neighbors out and about in the city who remember him, his cat and his kids. The event has brought him new friends and the kind of outings where people strike up conversations in the checkout line of the Twist & Shout record store with, “Hey, I remember your cat.”
“Something that seems very silly on its surface, like a cat tour, turns out to be really, truly such an oasis and opportunity to feel connection with neighbors and feel unmitigated joy,” Obuchowski said. “At some point, and I couldn’t pinpoint where exactly, this goes from being silly and quirky and fun to being really poignant and beautiful.”
