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.
