The 13th Annual Park Hill Art Festival

Yesterday afternoon I attended the 13th annual Park Hill Art Festival, which is being held on the grounds of the Park Hill Masonic Lodge, located on Denver's East Side. This festival is produced and promoted by a company called ColoradoArtWeekend.com, the same one that produced the Centennial Art Fest last weekend. I recognized a number of booths from last week, but with over 100 artists displaying fine art and crafts from Colorado and beyond, there were, happily, plenty of booths I didn't recognize to check out. This festival is more compact than other art festivals I have attended, but being held in such a nice residential neighborhood only adds to the ambience.

The Park Hill neighborhood is divided into South Park Hill, North Park Hill, and Northeast Park Hill. This festival is taking place in South Park Hill on East Montview Boulevard, a tree-lined street filled, for the most part, with what can only be called mansions. On the eastern border of Park Hill is what used to be Stapleton International Airport. Back in the 1990s, the residents of that neighborhood had so much political clout that they were able have Denver's airport moved to what seems like the Colorado-Kansas border instead of allowing Stapleton to expand onto a large empty tract called the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, a former chemical weapons plant, now a national wildlife refuge. And so now, Park Hill is free of the sound of commercial jets taking off and landing. Of course, instead of being able to get to the airport from most parts of Denver within 20 minutes, it now takes far longer. And instead of a quick and cheap cab ride, it takes an expensive Uber to get there. However, I am certainly not bitter about that. Not at all. No way. In any case, the Park Hill Art Festival continues today from 10:00 until 5:00. It is definitely worth a look. Enjoy the art and the serene ambiance of one of Denver's more quieter neighborhoods. 

Visiting Eldorado Canyon State Park

Like many people, I use Microsoft Edge as my web browser, mainly because that was what was provided when I bought the computer. The home page is filled with all kinds of articles and videos, including news stories, various features, top 10 lists of this or that, you name it. Yesterday I read an article in which the author listed her 5 favorite state parks in the country, and one of them was Eldorado Canyon State Park, located just to the south of Boulder, Colorado. I have known about Eldorado Canyon, and how popular it is, for years, but never got around to visiting it. But after reading that article, I decided it was finally time to drive up there. You reach it via Eldorado Springs Drive, which starts out paved and then turns into a gravel road as you approach the town of Eldorado Springs, a strange little town with a lot of old homes from around the turn of the 20th Century. Just beyond the town the state park begins, and you wind up a road past trailheads and technical climbing spots to the visitor's center, passing spectacular scenery along the way, such as the view of South Boulder Creek in the photograph on the left. Evidently the state park and the town were all part of a very popular resort complex, with the Crags Hotel located a thousand feet above the town, reached by train or a funicular, and the Eldorado Springs Resort in what is now the town of Eldorado Springs. Glen Miller played at the dance hall at that resort, and President Dwight Eisenhower and his wife Mamie honeymooned there. The pool from 1906 and the ballroom are still there today. This resort complex had its ups and downs in later years, and in 1978 the State of Colorado purchased the land to the west of town and made it into a state park to prevent it from being turned into a rock quarry. And good for them! It is definitely worth a visit. Just don't take 45 years to do it.

Man One: An Amos Walker Mystery

I just finished reading Man One, Loren D. Estleman's latest Amos Walker hard-boiled private eye novel. I've always enjoyed reading this series, which takes place in modern-day Detroit. This time, a young widow named Sage Holland drives non-stop from Alaska to Detroit to seek out Walker's help with a stalker. Holland was accused of poisoning her husband and convicted of manslaughter, but the verdict was overturned. However, her husband's brother, a police officer, believes she is guilty and has been following her cross-country, wanting her to pay for the crime. Insisting she is innocent, Walker agrees to take the case. This is a good noir style mystery, and Estleman really does a great job of evoking Detroit in the wintertime, giving us a good feel for what it is like there these days. It is a short novel, 192 pages, and really holds your attention. Estleman, a former police-beat reporter, is the author of eighty novels (33 in the Amos Walker series) and two hundred short stories, but is not as well-known as other mystery writers, at least outside the Detroit area. Which is good for readers, since you can usually find even his latest books on the library shelf and not have to put your name on a waiting list. I recommend picking up a copy today.

Clear Creek Opens To Tubers Early This Year!

Clear Creek, which runs through the heart of Golden, Colorado is open to tubers and kayakers much earlier than usual this year. I took the photograph above of a tuber and his kids this past Monday. They had the creek all to themselves that afternoon, but the scene will be much different this weekend, when everyone is off work and the temperatures will soar to almost 90 degrees. Of course, there is a downside to this favorite recreational activity beginning early: it is happening because of the lack of snow this past season in Colorado and other western states. With a much smaller snowpack, there has been much less melt off, which usually causes Clear Creek to rise and the water to run fast, making conditions too dangerous to be on the river. Getting a few weeks more tubing in this year is a high price to pay for water shortages and increased wildfire danger. It might very well be a long long summer this year.

The View From Willis Case

I drove up to Denver's Willis Case Golf Course the other day to take a few photographs. This course dates from 1929 and is located on a hill overlooking Colorado's Front Range. You can also see historic Lakeside Amusement Park from there. Lakeside is a family-owned amusement park located in Lakeside, Colorado, and opened in 1908. It is the oldest amusement park in Colorado still operating at its original location. In the photograph above can be seen the Tower of Jewels, an original building from 1908, and the Cyclone roller coaster, added back in 1940. The great thing about this park is that you can get in for $5.00, and then if you want, purchase individual tickets to the various rides. There was a major renovation back in the 1930s, with additional rides added and new buildings and ticket booths built, all in the Art Deco style, making a visit to the park at night, with all that neon, a really fun experience. The park is most famous for the Cyclone wooden roller coaster, which I have ridden a number of times. Sadly, back in 2022, someone injured their wrist while riding it, sued, and as a consequence, state regulators had Lakeside close down the Cyclone until they were able to make it safer. It has been closed ever since, but I read on the website of KYGO, a local FM radio station, that a social media page called American Coaster Enthusiasts has reported the coaster is "being tested," leading to speculation that the Cyclone might be back in operation this summer. Lakeside has no comment about that, but at least there is a glimmer of hope. 

Meanwhile, Back In Chicago At Rate Field

My South Side heroes, the Chicago White Sox, have been playing great baseball of late. They just finished a very successful homestand at Rate Field against the Twins and Tigers, and went 18-10 in the month of May, the second-best winning percentage (.643) in the American League after the Tampa Bay Rays (18-8, .692). They traveled to Minneapolis yesterday to start a series against the Minnesota Twins sporting a five-game win streak. And, I might add, the White Sox are currently 32 and 28 and are a game and a half out of first place in the AL Central. However, their rookie sensation, Munetaka Murakami, who has 20 home runs and is tied for the American League lead, went on the injured list with a right hamstring strain on Saturday, and is expected to miss four to six weeks. And last night the Sox lost to the Twins 9-6. Oh no! Can the White Sox continue their winning ways without Murakami? Could the curse of the Black Sox (the result of the White Sox throwing the World Series back in 1919) be rearing its ugly head again? Only time will tell. We White Sox fans are a pessimistic lot, with good reason. It is going to be a long six weeks.

Watching The San Francisco Giants Hammer The Colorado Rockies With Mark And Susan

I went to Coors Field here in Denver with my friend Mark and sister Susan yesterday afternoon to watch the Colorado Rockies play the San Francisco Giants, and it wasn't pretty. The Rockies won the first two games of the series, and if they won yesterday, they would have swept the Giants at Coors Field for the first time since 2018, not to mention escape last place in the National League West, leaving the Giants in the cellar. But it was not to be. Rockies pitchers gave up 25 hits, nine doubles, one triple, and three homers (one a grand slam) on the way to a 19 to 6 loss. And it took 3 hours and 38 minutes to do it. The only seats we could get were in right field behind the foul pole, which is where a fellow fan took the photograph above of the three of us (from left to right, myself, Susan and Mark). We could not see the action quite as well as from our usual seats, but that was probably for the best, considering the combined 6 errors and the fact it took 6 Rockies and 5 Giants pitchers to struggle through this game. Attendance was almost 38,000, and I was surprised at how many people stayed until the end, until we were heading for the exits. And realized it was Kids Day, when after the game all kids in attendance could run the bases. The line to do this completely circled the main concourse. There may have been 38,000 fans at the game, but a good 30,000 of them seemed to be in that line. Just another fun day at the ballpark.