Happy 4th

I've noticed that a lot of my posts happen to fall on holidays. It's not that I'm necessarily doing anything special on that day, but it is an easy way to remind myself to get on and add something to my blog (something I haven't been too regular at this year). I worked the neighborhood bike parade on the 4th. This event isn't sponsored by the Bike Club; it's actually hosted by the Social Committee. Bruce and Charlie walked me over to the family side where I was meeting up with the other volunteers. Charlie went nuts when we walked past the pool. I think he wanted to jump in.

Whenever they have one of these events, they go all out with activities for the kids. Along with decorations for their bikes, we set up a photo station, a coloring table (both markers and sidewalk chalk), popcorn and snow cone stands, and a duck pond. That's the blue pool behind us that we had to cart down to the park in a golf cart. The kids have to find the floating rubber ducks with stars on the bottom to win a prize.

We also had a tattoo station instead of face painting. The kids loved it, because they got to pick out their own designs and place the tattoos wherever they wanted. Thank goodness I didn't put my tattoo on my face, because I have yet to figure out how to wash it off. I like robots, but not as a permanent design on my hand.

Charlie turned 2 last week. To celebrate, we took him on a camping trip to Staunton State Park. As much as Coloradoan's love dogs, Staunton is one of the few state parks that has camping and allows dogs on their hiking trails. Strange. The camping was fairly successful until it was time to go to bed. I think our days of sleeping on the ground are over. All 3 of us hardly got any sleep at all. When we got home, I got on Amazon and bought 2 camping cots - not as good as a real bed, but a whole lot more comfortable than the ground.

We also had Bike-to-Work Day last week. We started out really early this year to make sure we could collect all the giveaways before they were gone. Luckily, they were also giving out bags to carry everything. We also got breakfast at 2 different stations - pancakes from one and breakfast burritos from another. Our new club jerseys really showed off nicely.

I'm still plugging away at my biking bucket list. This week I checked off the Clear Creek Trail in Golden, CO - home of the Colorado School of Mines and Coor Brewery. I originally had plans to bike all the way downtown and take the light rail back to Golden (Golden is uphill from downtown). But I didn't realize that it was 5 miles riding up hills across Golden to get to the start of the downhill portion of the trail. I figured 5 miles was a long enough portion of the trail, so I turned around and headed back to the car. I stopped off at the History Park to get a snack and do a little sketch. Riding up and down hills in Colorado is not the same as riding up and down hills in Missouri. I can't believe I ever thought the hills in Forest Park were hard!

New Bike Trails

I checked 2 more bike trails off my bucket list this week. We went up to Loveland, CO to ride the loop trail that circles the city (22 miles). I think some of our bike club members were intimidated by the ride and so decided not to attend, but to me the hardest part of the excursion was driving up I-25 in rush hour traffic.

The trail was very flat (all concrete), and the weather was spectacular - 70° and sunny with a light breeze. Loveland isn't a very big town, so the scenery was gorgeous. The mountains look a little more rugged here than they do further south from my neighborhood.

I stayed on in Loveland and did a little sketching after our ride. I found a really nice coffee shop next to a quirky art museum. I think that sculpture on the right is supposed to represent a cougar and a couple cacti. The whole thing was made out of rusty metal. 

The art spots continued as I drove south to Berthoud and then Longmont. I thought this sculpture of a lizard in a dress was a little creepy, but the whole park had similarly themed statues. I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable sitting on that bench with the lizard looking at me.

I had dinner at the 99 Bar Saloon. I thought the barbeque burnt ends on a baked potato sounded really good. But let me tell you, that chef needs to take a trip to Kansas City, because those were not burnt ends. They were short ribs, only they were mostly fat. It was an extremely disappointing dinner. At least the baked potato was good, but $17 is a little pricey for a potato.

I spent the night in Longmont and then rode the St Vrain's Greenway trail the next day. I started at the trailhead near the Sandstone Ranch Visitor Center - one of the first homesteads in Longmont. But this rocky trail was way beyond my comfort zone (and my tires' ability to stay inflated). So, I took the park service road and luckily found the concrete portion of the trail. Gravel biking is very popular in Colorado, but not for me.

I also went back to the Sand Creek Trail this week. The last time I rode it, I was with the bike club and wasn't able to do any sketching. The trail runs through Central Park which was formed from the runways of the old Denver Stapleton Airport. They've turned the control tower into an entertainment venue. The picture on the right is a 2-lane bowling alley sandwiched between the restaurant and the mini-golf course. Since the mini golf course was not busy and in the shade, I sat out there to sketch.

As I was riding back through Central Park, I saw this elaborate 4-story playground structure on the left. I had to laugh at how complex it was (kind of like a slide on steroids), especially compared to the type of playground equipment we grew up with. 

Happy Father's Day

Well, our kids don't live at home anymore, but we've got a dog who thinks he's a big kid. And boy is he spoiled. We took him to the neighborhood outdoor concert Friday night. He was pretty good about not jumping on other people, but he seemed to want to sit on Bruce's lap. I guess he wasn't a fan of the country western band that was playing.

This week we took a mini vacation to Gunnison, CO. A long time ago, one of Bruce's grandfathers lived there, so he wanted to go back and see the town. The trouble was, he was only 6 the last time he was there, so he really didn't remember much. We rented a cabin at the Blue Mesa Outpost right on the Gunnison River. It was a beautiful spot and a very nice cabin.

One day we drove over to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. It looks a bit like a miniature version of the Grand Canyon only with black rocks. That's Bruce out on the viewing platform looking down the canyon. 

Like most national parks, you can only take dogs on the short trails around the Visitor Center. There was a trail that went along the rim to the campground that allowed dogs. I hiked about halfway with Bruce and Charlie, but then I stopped to do a little sketch. The scenery was too gorgeous to pass up.

Mostly we cooked our meals on the grill at the cabin, but on the way back from the national park we stopped for lunch at an old Big Boy cafe. The hamburgers were just as big and juicy as the one on the Big Boy statue.

Luckily, I managed to get in a bike ride on Monday before we left, so I was able to check off another ride on my bucket list. I wanted to ride the Cherry Creek trail downtown to Meininger's art store. All the locals have been telling me that it's the best place to go in Denver. They certainly had a lot of supplies, but unfortunately not the brand of paint I was looking for. Right next door was a quirky costume shop with kind of a loose Harry Potter theme. I would love to go back there some time and see if the manager would let me do some sketching from the inside.

Happy June

Now that the weather is getting warmer, I've been signing up for some outdoor activities with the Senior Center. This week, we went to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs. It's an interesting concept in that the zoo is literally built into the side of a mountain. So to see the animals, you have to walk up switchback trails to get to them. Our leader told us we could save ourselves a lot of work by taking the gondola to the top and walking back down. The "gondola" turned out to be an open chairlift like they use on the ski slopes. I tend to hate those things, but at least no one was swinging their skis next to me. Unfortunately, when we got to the top, all the trails were closed for construction. So, we had to get back on the chairlift and ride it back down (an even more frightening feeling to me that you're going to fall out). 

Being from St Louis with one of the best zoos in the country, this zoo was a bit of a disappointment. It reminded me more of a giant farmyard petting zoo than an actual wild animal zoo. This chicken kept looking for handouts when I stopped to do some sketching at one of the outdoor cafes. There was supposed to be a giraffe, an elephant, and a rhino in the zoo, but with all the construction trail closures, I never found them.

Instead, I laughed my head off at this goofy goat. He was standing on top of a tower begging people to put food pellets into his cup at the bottom of the tower. When someone did, they'd ring the bell, and the goat would turn the wheel on the pulley to bring it up to his platform. Quite a clever animal. 

On Saturday, I volunteered at the ribbon-cutting ceremony at our new Community Center. This center is like a mini-clubhouse adjacent to the family-side pool. It originally started as a utility garage to house the lawn mowers and snow blowers, but they expanded the design to include a few meeting rooms, a small kitchen, and a large patio. I'm anxious to see what kind of events they come up with for using it. BTW, I'm setting up the dinosaur dig for the little kids. We hid plastic dinosaurs and crystals in trays of sand - kind of an Indiana Jones thing.

I struck off another trail on my biking bucket list. The Toll Gate Creek trail runs north and south through Aurora up to the Sand Creek Trail. It was a very nice trail, but had a few too many street crossings for my comfort level. I actually added a trail to the bottom of my list - the Flint Hills trail in Ottawa, KS. I rode a tiny piece of this trail a couple years ago, but I signed up for the Moonrise Bike Ride over Labor Day weekend. We're going to ride 20 miles from Ottawa to Pomona State Park. The main ride is in the afternoon, but there is an optional bike ride around the lake after the sun goes down (hence, the "moonrise" title). It will be interesting to see if I can stay awake for that.

Memorial Day

Since we finally had a full week of good weather, I decided to get back in shape for the summer. First off, I went to REI and bought myself a new pair of hiking boots. I didn't realize how worn out my old ones were until I compared the soles to my new boots. To break them in, I went over to the Rueter-Hess Incline. It's a fairly easy trail, only 1.2 miles long. But it has a 132-step staircase built into the first section. A lot of athletes use it for training (they run up and down it); I just wanted to climb up for the views.

When you get to the top, you have a gorgeous view of Pike's Peak to the south. I'd brought my sketchbook with me, but the wind was too strong to paint. So I took the side trail down back to the car (not nearly as steep and no steps). The thing that made me feel good about this trail was that every single person was huffing and puffing when they got to the top - even the 30-year olds. Of course, they ran ran up the trail while I just walked.

The next day, I checked another bike trail off my bucket list by biking the Sand Creek Trail. It's a crushed-gravel trail in north Aurora that runs east-west just a little south of I-70. Government officials are pumping a lot of development money into this part of the city, so it was in really good shape with only one street-crossing.

We rode the trail for about 10 miles and then stopped at the Panda Coffee Shop in the old Stapleton Airport Tower. The Stapleton Airport used to be Denver's primary airport, but they built a new airport in 1995. They dug up the runways and turned the green space into Central Park. And they redeveloped the old airport tower into an entertainment venue with bars, restaurants, mini-golf, and a bowling alley. I thought the panda bear design on the top of my mocha was really cute.

On Thursday, Bruce, Charlie, and I went on a hike to Panorama Point in Kittredge, CO. It's a moderately-challenging hike with 646 ft of elevation gain to get to the top. That's why it always amazes me that it is such a popular trail for the mountain bike riders. I have a hard enough time riding my bike back up the sidewalk to our house. But Charlie absolutely loved getting out and showing off his new haircut.

On the way home, we stopped at the Switchback Smokehouse for lunch. They have the most interesting pulled-pork sandwiches with fried pickles on top. Charlie didn't eat the pickles, but he really liked their sweet potato fries.

Mothers' Day

In Colorado, they say that Mothers' Day represents the first day of spring. It's about the first time you can "almost" guarantee that it's finally stopped snowing. Bruce went to Lowes on Mothers' Day weekend, and he said the place was PACKED with people buying garden plants. Luckily, most of the flowers in our garden survived the winter. Matter of fact, all that snow seems to have made all my perennials multiply to twice their size... at least the ones the deer didn't eat.

For Mothers' Day, we got carryout from a new restaurant called, Waldo's Chicken. OMG, was that ever good. I got the chicken tenders, onion rings, and collard greens. I'd have to say that the onion rings were as good as the ones from HiBoys, and I've never found anything that can compare.

I can't believe that it's already the middle of May, but that's because I took a week off to go to Chicago and St Louis. Courtney and I participated in International Urban Sketcher Week. Clubs all over the world got together to sketch and then posted their pictures online. We met some of her friends at Millenium Park downtown near the lakefront. 

It was a bit chilly sketching outdoors with the wind coming off the water. But we managed to find a bench in the sun. Since it was a Saturday, there were a lot of vendors doing giveaways. The comic bookstore across the street had a line around the block with people waiting to get a free comic book. We got free protein bars and a chance to spin the prize wheel from the Barebells food truck (we both won keychains and a sticker on our spin). 

Courtney had to go to her pottery class in the afternoon, so I took a walk down Michigan Ave. I forgot how unbelievably crowded that street can be. I stepped inside the new Harry Potter store to see what it was like. There was a huge line of people waiting to place their orders for butter beer. I'm not sure what butter beer is, but I figured it wasn't worth waiting an hour to find out.

I passed a cluster of Mexican statues, probably on display for Cinco de Mayo. I would have stopped to sketch them, but there was no place to sit. 

So, then I took the train out to Oak Park. They'd also had a sketch meetup earlier in the day. And since the sun was starting to warm things up, I thought I'd do a sketch of the Frank Lloyd Wright studio. When I was walking over to the studio, I saw a big group of older bikers all dressed up in costumes. I'm not quite sure what they were representing, but they looked like they were having a good time.

On Monday, I flew to St Louis to meet up with my Nerinx friends. Since I had an early flight, we went out for a late breakfast and then played Splendor until it was late enough to head over to Ted Drewes for our annual Cardinal Sin. I think this visit was somewhat prophetic given that just a few days later they promoted the Cardinal from Chicago to Pope. 

I spent a little time wandering around the Delmar Loop, since I was staying at the Moonrise Hotel. The Loop has certainly changed in the 4 years we've been gone. The buildings that used to house our old bank have been torn down and apartments are being built in their place. They certainly have a ready pool of renters with Washington University just a couple blocks away. 

St Louis is way ahead of Denver in the greening-up department. They've had a ton of rain this spring, so everything is very lush. I wonder what all that foliage will look like in July when the rain dries up and the temperatures soar. But for now, the whole town was very colorful with spring flowers.

I went over to the Chrisman Studio to do some sketching. He's turned his whole side yard into a quirky sculpture garden with castoffs he's found at old antique shops. He also makes a lot of his own sculptures from scrap metal and used car parts. I could probably spend a month sketching here.

But I had to get back to Denver, because I had a few field trips lined up. The first was a tour of a cannabis cultivation facility with the Parker Senior Center (interesting place for a bunch of seniors to go). I'm probably the last person who would ever tour a marijuana factory, but it really was quite interesting. The first part of the tour focused on the agriculture of growing the cannabis plants and how they used every single trick of biology and photosynthesis to get the plants to yield the biggest harvest possible. Then they discussed the extraction process to make edibles (gummies) and CBD oils. 

I didn't quite understand everything they were saying, because they talked so fast. But our tour guides were certainly happy people.

That evening, I went to a happy hour for members of the Parker Arts Center. It was being held in a very upscale jewelry store, so the hors d'oeuvre spread was really top-notch. The jewelry was nice, but way too pricey for me. I don't tend to wear much jewelry and if I do buy something new, I usually get it off Amazon. The next day I went to a fashion show at the clubhouse with these same ladies. The lady next to me was one of the models.

My final activity of the month was the annual Club Fair. I worked the Bike Club table for a while and then went over to the Ladies Out to Lunch table. I don't run the membership of that club anymore, but the lady who does was handing out mimosas. I guess that's a sure-fire way to get people to join your club.

Ride Your Age

I saw this YouTube video where a 75-year-old guy went out to ride 75 miles on his birthday. Evidently that is a thing in the biking world. The video was a little painful to watch, however, since the guy was from Denver and it's kind of hard to ride for 75 miles without running into hills. At about the halfway point in the video, he had to stop to catch his breath and seriously considered calling his wife to come pick him up. Nevertheless, I was intrigued and decided to try it myself, only not all on the same day. I gave myself a week. 

Fifteen of the miles I rode with the bike club, but those rides tend to involve hills. I did a little research on the internet and managed to chain together 5 different gulch and river trails to get an additional 57 miles. (Trails through gulches and along rivers tend to be flat.) The biggest thing I had to contend with was the wind - it always seems to be blowing in the opposite direction that I'm riding.

You'd think I'd be in fantastic shape after all those miles, but it probably doesn't help that I usually stop at Starbucks or Panera's afterwards for a refreshing drink. Charlie has decided he likes going to Starbucks, too!

Happy Easter... almost

When we lived in St Louis, we often got rain on Good Friday. But in Colorado, we get snow. It's so frustrating to me, because I hate going out in the cold, but Charlie seems to love it. Fortunately for me, Bruce likes taking him for walks even if there is snow on the ground.

Luckily, we had our neighborhood Easter egg hunt last weekend when it was 80 degrees out. My job was to spread the eggs. They were supposed to be divided into 5 different age groups.

But once the head ref blew the whistle, everyone stormed the field - kids, adults, and dogs. I thought parents were supposed to stay on the sidelines taking photos, but I guess they wanted to make sure their kids scooped up plenty of eggs. The field was totally cleared in 15 seconds.

We hired an Easter bunny to take photos with the kids. I tried offering him a bottle of water, because it was so hot, but he declined. I realized later that he would have had to take his head off to drink the water, which might have freaked out some of the littler kids.

Bruce took advantage of the warm day to install our new solar garden light. He built a really nice redwood frame around it. I landscaped it with some large rocks and an evergreen plant. Luckily, we already had an irrigation line there, but Bruce had to dig down underneath the gravel to bring it up.

I went out to brunch this week with my Ladies Out to Lunch group. It's been ages since we've been together, and some of our members are still snowbirding in Arizona. When it's snowing out, I wish I were with them.

I went on an antiquing trip to Castle Rock with the Senior Center. The antiques were pretty disappointing - more like cutesy home decor stuff. But on the way home, we stopped at a bakery, and I bought some scones and brownies for Easter. Yum!

Easter marks the end of mine and Janet's Winter Bucket List challenge. I managed to check off most of the items in our list. I've watched a ton of movies on YouTube the last few weeks, but I never managed to find one I wanted to see at the theater. I've been out to lunch several times, but not really at a food court. I've filled up 2 boxes of junk for Goodwill, but never actually taken them over there. And somehow Valentine's Day totally passed me by. 

But Charlie and I went for a walk in the park (one of the last things on my list). Charlie has actually started going with me when I make my Starbucks runs. He likes looking for pieces of scones that other customers might have dropped.