Urban Sketchers Workshop

For this week's adventure, I went to Chicago for their annual Urban Sketchers Workshop. It's always fun to go visit Courtney in Chicago, but I totally forgot about the humidity and mosquitoes you get in the Midwest in the summer.

This year I decided to sign up for some of the formal classes. The first one was on drawing people - not really my thing and the instructor did nothing to change my opinion. We spent the first half of the class drawing a Halloween skull he bought last October at Menards; then we paired up and practiced drawing our partners (the girl in the middle was my partner). I really tried to do a good job on her, but we weren't given much time (2 minutes actually), so she tended to look like the Halloween skull.

Courtney presented a demo during the morning sketchwalk on using acrylic paint markers to draw iconic Chicago landmarks. I would have much rather attended her session than the people drawing. 

The Palette & Chisel gallery (our home base for the workshop) was hosting an art show and sale of pieces from any sketchers who wanted to contribute. Courtney painted a bunch of postcard size drawings on tan paper. That made those bright markers pop even more. Her work was extremely popular as you can tell by all the little red "sold" dots underneath her paintings.

She tried to teach me how to do it on Sunday, but we were using an incredibly ornate Gothic church as the subject matter. It was hard for me to simplify the initial drawing, plus I picked colors that were too dark. I'm intrigued by the technique, so I came home and ordered my own set of markers off Amazon. We'll see if I can make mine look as good as Courtney's.

After the first class Courtney and I went to lunch at Velvet Taco, my favorite place to eat in Chicago. Every time I go there, the menu is just a bit different, because their tacos are not traditional Mexican fare. This time I had the fish & chips and fried paneer (cheese). Yum! We actually went back again on Sunday, and I tried the Chile pulled pork tacos. 

My afternoon workshop was significantly more interesting to me than the morning. It was on travel sketching. Our instructor was very lively and really kept things moving. We all downloaded a travel app to our phones and then we followed the itinerary she uploaded. She gave us paints and sketchbooks she'd gotten donated by various businesses (the paint came from a company in Poland). We started sketching at the Blue Door Cafe to sketch the outside of the shop (obviously, because it had a bright blue door). Then we walked over to a park to sketch a city skyline view that included the Hancock Building. 

We ended up at a couple picnic tables where she'd laid out iconic Chicago travel souvenirs like Cubs hats, Garretts popcorn, and hot dogs. At the end of our workshop, we got to eat the food that was left on the table. I should have probably tried a hot dog, since it was dinnertime, but they were just a bit weird with huge dill pickles, sliced tomatoes, relish, and mustard. Supposedly people in Chicago do not put ketchup on their hot dogs. It's hard to tell in my sketch, but you can see a tiny bit of the hot dog peeking out from under the dill pickle.

At the end of the weekend, I had so many free art supplies that I couldn't fit them all into my suitcase. I had to leave a bunch with Courtney.

But traveling would not be complete without the dreaded plane ride home. Southwest is trying to improve the "comfort" of their passengers, but sometimes I wonder if the person making those changes actually flies on their own airplanes. They don't hand out peanuts anymore, but we got cookies instead. Supposedly they were gluten-free, organic, flourless and any other new buzzword people are throwing around in the food industry... but there were only 4 nickel-sized cookies in the pack. They've also installed new tray tables to their seat backs. There's a little pull-down tray you can use to prop up your phone. Interesting, though you couldn't stream movies, because the "free" wi-fi wasn't working.

But truthfully, it would be much more practical if they put their improvements toward enlarging the overhead bin space. People are bringing so much junk onto the plane these days. I watched this dad trying to pack up his baby stroller before getting onto the plane. Luckily all the pieces were collapsible, but it still ended up being about the size of (and looking like) a body bag for a St Bernard dog. What happened to those little umbrella strollers we used with our kids???

Happy 250 America!

Happy 250 America... and 150 Colorado... and 50 Bruce and Michele. 2026 has been a big year for anniversaries. I actually found these t-shirts at the garden center when I went in to buy some plants. It's a little difficult to see, but in the lower right corner beneath the shield, I used a pen to add a "50" for our own anniversary. They were cute shirts to wear to my neighbor's 4th of July party. 

Since Colorado is under an extreme fire warning this summer, all fireworks were banned. It's caused quite a bit of debate, but luckily most people were willing to comply. Having 3 wildfires still raging out of control kind of makes compliance a no-brainer. I noticed that a lot of places have started implementing drone shows in place of fireworks displays. Being a robotics buff, I think that's a fascinating substitution.

I did my annual volunteer job handing out decorations at the neighborhood bike parade. We had over 200 participants, mostly kids on bikes and scooters, but I also saw decorated baby strollers, dogs, and a couple wheelchairs. When the parade started, my job was to act as the "sweep" - the last person keeping everyone in line kind of like the cowboys rustling up the cows on the prairie. 

The day before, our bike club rode to the Fika Coffee Shop for our monthly Fika Friday ride. The smoke from the wildfires in Pueblo finally cleared up a little, so we had a lot of people show up. Since we went early to beat the heat, we had the patio almost to ourselves.

For my Do Something New this week, I went to an art show run by 2 ladies in the neighborhood. One is an oil painter, mostly portraits, but she embellishes her paintings with 3-D objects made out of clay, like necklaces, earrings, hats, fruit, etc. The other artist creates 3-dimensional sculptures from found objects. Literally, one of her pieces used old toilet parts (cleaned up and painted, of course). It was really an interesting show.

I also rode my bike to a new coffee shop in downtown Denver called, Hello Darling. The decor was somewhat quirky pink and green couches, but that appealed to me since I had my sketchbook with me.

The coffee shop was right next to Commons Park and the Platte River. There's not much water in the rivers and creeks right now, but the grass in the park was still pretty green. I guess they don't have the same watering restrictions downtown that we do out in the suburbs.

Happy Birthday #3, Charlie

Today is Charlie's birthday, 6/26/26, but it's also a palindrome day (the date reads the same forwards or backwards). Charlie got to celebrate in his favorite way - Bruce took him for a walk at the prairie dog park and I bought him a new pop-in treat bone. As you can see, he loves his treats.

This week was Bike-to-Work Day in Colorado. Normally, our club participates in the Denver breakfast and giveaway stations, but this year we took a little adventure into the mountains. On the first day, we had 17 people show up for a 9-mile ride up to Copper Mountain. It turned out to be a gorgeous day - not too hot and not too cold.

The bikers at the head of the group actually got a little carried away and rode past the turnoff for Copper Mountain. They finally turned around at the Fremont Pass (notice the signpost for Leadville). We were at 11,318 ft - about 1200 ft higher than we originally intended. No wonder I was totally out of breath. There's a distinct lack of oxygen when you're up that high.

After a high-speed ride back down that steep hill, we stopped at the Prospector Market Place in Frisco for lunch. This was a really interesting place - a food court in the alley between 2 downtown buildings. I had the empanadas, but I'll have to go back sometime for the fish tacos the place next to it was serving.

The next day was the official Bike-to-Work Day. Vendors set up tents around town and gave away breakfast items and bike goodies. Three of us got up early to hit the downtown Frisco station. I picked up a neck gator, a paddleboard dry bag, a first aid kit, and stickers along with some energy bars and fruit.

Then we met up with the rest of the club to bike to Breckenridge. Some people from the Copper Mountain ride had gone home, but others drove up for the day. It was another beautiful one.

I actually went up a day early to ride the Gore Creek Trail to Vail. I had great views on this ride of the mountains and the creek.

My destination in Vail was to visit the Betty Ford Alpine Gardens. This is the highest botanical garden in North America at 8200 ft (about 3000 ft lower than we rode to the Fremont Pass). We've discovered since we moved here that it's a bit tricky to get plants to grow at high elevations, so this garden was filled with lots of rocks, benches, and gnarly old trees as well as native plants.

One of the buildings had a roof made entirely out of plants. These are the same kind of plants we've got growing in our backyard. They're pretty easy to grow, but once in a while the deer like to snack on them. 

There were also several sculptures interspersed throughout the gardens. I took a little break to sketch the one on the right - a conglomeration of colorful birdhouses.

It was a really fun, but exhausting 3 days. The interesting thing, however, is that when I got back home and looked on Facebook, I saw my picture from a previous ride in an advertisement for one of the Bike-to-Work stations in Parker. I'm famous!

Senior Week

A few weeks ago, I attended a Roadmap to Aging seminar, which made me think we should start doing a little estate planning. So first off, we met with a lawyer about making out a will. I thought it would be a simple process - leave everything to the kids with a 50/50 split. But when a lawyer and government regulations are involved, nothing is ever that simple. We got asked all kinds of questions like "what do you want done with your body" or "how long should the doctor wait to pull the plug if you're in a coma." I'm sure these are all important issues, but definitely a bit depressing. 

The next item from the seminar was to visit a senior independent living community. A group of us took a field trip to the Reserve in Lone Tree. I knew this probably wasn't the place for me when I walked in the door and saw their motto, "retirement for the rich at heart." It should have said, "rich in pocketbook," because this is currently the most expensive retirement home in Denver. It looked more like a giant cruise ship to me with 4 dining facilities, a saltwater pool, both dog and people spas, a theater, library, and bars everywhere you looked. The people who retire here must really be into drinking. The apartments themselves looked pretty much like the one my Dad had at the Parkway, but at 4 times the price. The manager told us the average age of their residents was 81, so I think I've got a few years before I need to worry about that.

Moving on to cheerier topics, for my "do something new" challenge this week, the Bike Club rode the Poudre River Trail from Greeley to Windsor, Colorado (22 miles). It's a new trail, all concrete, but pretty rural - lots of wild turkey and deer. There were no coffee shops along the route, but we stopped at a nice patio next to the Loaf & Jug convenience store for a snack break. 

On the way back to our cars, we got stopped by a huge train stopped across the trail (one of those with over 100 cars). I had a feeling the train was going to be there a while unloading or loading up freight. So, the conductor decoupled a couple cars and backed the train off the trail. I don't know how in the world we would have gotten back otherwise, because we were out in the middle of nowhere.

On Thursday, Bruce, Charlie, and I hiked the Panorama Point Trail in Jefferson County. This is one of my favorite places to hike, partly because there is a nice flat rock halfway up the trail that I can use to sketch while Bruce and Charlie continue hiking up the hill. But also, because it's right next to Smokehouse Barbecue, which has fabulous pulled pork and fried pickle sandwiches. Yum!

And on Friday, after all those disparate activities, I rode my bike to the Fika Coffee Shop for a little peace and quiet. Unfortunately, I think half of Parker had the same idea, because the place was packed. There's a little wishing well right near the front door of the shop. Someone had installed a trinket box jam-packed with stickers, bracelets, mini-figs, and small toys. The funny thing was I think every adult who passed the box, stopped to peek inside. 

New Challenge

I'm getting a little bored with walking and reading challenges, so I decided to set a goal of doing something new each week. It can be something educational like visiting a new museum or something for entertainment like going to a new movie. I just need some motivation to get outside away from my Kindle and computer. So, I started off with a trip to the Mother Cabrini Shrine in Golden, CO. Mother Cabrini was an Italian nun who was sent to America by Pope Leo XIII (not the current Pope; he's Leo XIV). Her goal was to establish orphanages, schools, and hospitals for Italian-American immigrants. She was the first American to be canonized a saint. Truthfully, Mother Cabrini spent a lot more of her career in New York and Chicago than she ever did in Denver. But in order to become a saint, you have to have 2 miracles credited to you and one of hers was finding water on the top of the mountain where her shrine is located. 

I went on this trip with the Parker Senior Center. I always think their trips are very interesting, but this one turned out to be a little hairy. In order to get to the very top of the monument, you have to climb 350 steps. Since the average age of our group is around 85 and mobility is definitely iffy, we got permission to drive up there. I was totally freaked out when they pointed us to this dirt track that ran along the side of the mountain. Surprisingly, the bus had enough power to make the steep climb, but I opted to walk the 350 steps back down to the gift center when the tour was over.

My next little adventure was a trip to the Argo Mill in Idaho Springs, an historic gold mining and processing plant. It's considered an engineering marvel, because back in 1893 they built a 4-mile long tunnel to drain water from over 150 underground mines. The tunnel also provided a fast way for miners to get to the mill and process their ore (instead of climbing up and over the mountain). We only went about 50 yards into the tunnel, but that was enough for me.

We also toured the mill and learned about the chemistry of extracting the different metals from the surrounding rock. Mostly they used a lot of hazardous chemicals, so it's no wonder the mill workers had a life-expectancy of only 40 years.

At the end of the tour, we got to pan for gold. I personally thought this was really challenging not to lose your gold when you're swirling it around in a pan of sand and water. But I managed to find my 2 microscopic flakes. Surprisingly, they are worth about 50 cents.

On Thursday, Bruce, Charlie, and I went to Sandstone Ranch. Bruce and Charlie went on a hike, while I attended a Plein Air workshop. The teacher was an oil painter, but she focused on different types of setups for painting outdoors. Notice her big umbrella sitting on top of her easel. Surprisingly, she said with the intense UV in Colorado, an umbrella was almost as important as the paints you use. I thought about staying around to do a little painting of my own, but since Bruce and Charlie had finished their hike, we headed off to the Mexican restaurant in Larkspur for lunch instead... yum!

And speaking of Bruce, we got inspired by Janet's photo of her kids sealing her driveway for Mothers' Day, so Bruce took a day to seal ours. We haven't gotten any harsh cracks or spalling yet, but I figured it doesn't hurt to seal the concrete against Denver's harsh winter climate.

And the week wouldn't be complete without a bike ride or two... or three. On Monday, I went out exploring on my own. They paved a new trail in Denver along the Jackass Gulch (I'm sure that was named during the Gold Rush days) that leads down to the light rail station, crosses over a 6-lane road, and ends up at the Platte River Trail. It's so nice to find trails that feel safe, and it's an extra bonus when they are paved. On Wednesday, I led our bike group on a loop ride in this same area. We didn't take the Jackass Trail, because it's pretty steep to ride back up to the parking lot, but we did take another trail along the Platte River - very scenic and flat. On Friday, I rode to the Fika Coffee Shop by myself, because I wanted to do some sketching and I wanted to take a break from doing new things every day. My original goal was once a week; I need to remember that.

Finally, Some Warmth

Well, it's the first day of June, so hopefully the snow is over. I swear we got more snow in May than we did in the first 4 months of the year. I celebrated the odometer on my new bike hitting the 500-mile mark with a loop ride on the Bridge-to-Nowhere. I had to go out on a Saturday, since it rained all last week. It was nice to get out, but the bike trails are like freeways around here on weekends. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate, so I can stick to riding on weekdays the rest of the summer. The trails are much less crowded.

The saga with the birds building nests in our entryway continues. Chicken wire didn't keep them out and neither did the shiny, dangling CDs. So, Bruce took down the chandelier-style porch light and installed a ceiling fan. We've been keeping it on all day, and so far, no new nests have shown up. Hopefully the birds found a new home on one of the neighbor's porches. 

Charlie and I have been walking over to Starbucks once a week from the Prairie Dog Park. The sidewalks are closed right now, because the road to Starbucks is under construction. But we can walk up to Starbucks from the back by driving over to the park. Charlie prefers riding in Bruce's Jeep, but he'll tolerate the back seat of my Mini Cooper if he gets to chase and sniff wildlife.

I finished Pearl's baby book for Janet this week. This one turned out to be easier to make than I expected. It helped finding a scrapbook kit on Amazon focused on baby girls, and a lot of the papers were in sage green (Melissa's chosen color). The pages look a little plain right now, but that's so Janet can embellish them with photos.

I've been doing a lot of reading the past month, since we've had so much rain. May's challenge was to read a book with a season in the title. "Falls" in New Girl in the Falls technically refers to water not autumn, but the only other books I could find with a season in the title referred to winter, and I was sick of anything to do with snow or cold. The book is about a former FBI agent who moves to Sweetwater Falls to be their sheriff when her husband is murdered in New York City. I like books about strong women, but the deputies in this book make some of the dumbest moves that anyone who's watched an episode of Law & Order wouldn't make. I read The Quitters Club to get a "Q" book for the alphabet challenge. It was a contemporary women's fiction, a genre I tend to avoid because of all the drama and whining, but it was free on Amazon and Q books are hard to find. I read Murder on the Oxford Canal for the category of reading a book from an author whose last name is a first name. I enjoy Faith Martin's books so much that I actually read the entire 14-book series. So, next on the list for June I have to find a #booktok rec... but first I have to figure out what in the world is a #booktok.

Happy Memorial Day

We decided to celebrate Memorial Day with a bike ride to the Mexican restaurant. That seems more like something we should have done for Cinco de Mayo, but it was snowing then. This time the husbands rode along, too.

While I was in Seattle I missed the grand opening of the Bridge-to-Nowhere - aptly nicknamed, because 2 years ago, the city installed a pedestrian bridge over a very busy 6-lane road but then gated it off because it didn't go anywhere (it connected 2 empty fields). Well, they finally finished paving a trail on both sides which luckily connects our neighborhood to the Cherry Creek Trail (the one I usually drive to). So, I got up early on Sunday and rode down to check it out myself. It was sort of a miserable day (cold and windy), but I managed to get back home before the rain hit.

And speaking of rain, it's done nothing but for the past week. We finally took Charlie to the dog park so he could work off a little energy. He was so wound up that he literally kept jumping up on this platform rather than run up the ramp. At least he was a little calmer when we got home.

I went to a couple events at the clubhouse this week. The first was a Roadmap to Aging talk titled, Aging with Joy. Mostly, they encouraged eating healthy, exercising, and not sitting around in a recliner for too long. That doesn't necessarily sound joyful to me.

The second was the annual spring fashion show. Like usual, the clothes were nothing I'd ever wear, but the lunch was nice. And it's always fun to catch up with other ladies from the neighborhood.