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.

The First Annual Centennial Fine Art Festival

Yesterday afternoon I attended the first annual Centennial Fine Art Festival, which is taking place this weekend at the Streets at SouthGlenn in Centennial, Colorado, a suburb just to the south of Denver. The Streets at SouthGlenn is the former site of the Southglenn Mall, which opened in 1974 with Sears, The Denver, and May D&F as the anchor stores, all three of those department stores now long gone. I remember going to this mall on a regular basis years ago, but when the Park Meadows Mall, one of the major shopping destinations in the Denver area, opened in Douglas County in 1996, sales at Southglenn began to decline and stores began to close. The mall was demolished and replaced by the Streets at Southglenn, a "mixed-use lifestyle center" with retail, dining, open space, and even apartments. And I must say, they did a good job with the place, and it is an excellent spot for an art festival. I am surprised it took so long to make it happen.

This festival has a lot of really nice art, including "paintings, sculpture, jewelry, glass, ceramics, photography, wood, fiber, and more," as it states on its website. I really enjoyed walking around looking at the art, especially the photography, and it is a great location to just hang out, too. As I was looking at the artwork, I noticed several artists who also displayed their work at the Denver Arts Festival, including the artist whose paintings are displayed in the photograph on the right, as well as photographer Shaun Downey (https://shaundowneyphotography.com/, once again displaying his wonderful animal portraits at his booth, especially the ones taken in Africa. It made me think about the business end of these festivals. Shows like the Denver Arts Festival and the Cherry Creek Arts Festival are run by independent non-profits, to whom the artist applies directly in hopes of getting a booth at their festival. The Centennial Fine Art Festival is run by ColoradoArtShows.com, which is a for-profit company that produces art shows throughout the state, including next weekend's Park Hill Art Festival, Evergreen Mountain Arts, and the Lake Dillon Art Fest, all of which I have attended at one time or another. I assume if you are accepted by this company to display your art, you can display it at one or all of the festivals the company produces. There is a similar company in Florida called Howard Alan Events that produces a number of art festivals I have visited in the Stuart area. Definitely a good way for artists to show their work to a much wider audience, especially if this is the main way they make their living.

The Centennial Fine Art Festival also has musical entertainment both Saturday and Sunday, and the first thing I noticed about the music I heard yesterday afternoon at this festival was that it was really good. They were playing blues music while I was there, and I looked the group up on the festival's website when I got home. They are The Delta Sonics, seen in the photograph on the left, and according to the website they bring "over 30 years of Colorado blues history" with them. They are six-time Westword Best Blues Band winners and a "go-to backing band for national legends like BB King, Robert Cray, and Bo Diddley. Very impressive indeed. This art festival goes on today from 10:00 until 5:00 and I strongly advise you to stop by if you get a chance. Enjoy!

Springtime At Red Rocks

I took a drive through Red Rocks Park just to the west of Denver yesterday afternoon, and not surprisingly, they were preparing for a concert that evening. This happens every time I drive up there these days, since concert season is now in full swing. I checked the internet when I got home and saw that Michael Franti and Spearhead were returning to Red Rocks "for a night packed with uplifting energy, reggae grooves, and feel-good anthems" that night. I was tempted to attend, but I suspect they charge actual money to get in, and so the thought quickly passed. Red Rocks is a great place to hike or even to just drive around and enjoy the scenery, such as in the photograph on the left. There are a lot of deer around there much of the year, although they seem to make themselves scarce during concert season. I have never actually attended a performance at Red Rocks but have been tempted many times. Ticket prices and scenes from the past of concert goers being pelted by hail have always dissuaded me. So far.

Just south of Red Rocks is the town of Morrison, Colorado, settled in 1874 and filled with a number of historic buildings. Bear Creek Avenue, the main drag, is lined with restaurants and bars that attract concertgoers before they head up to the amphitheater. Whenever I drive through town, I always seem to catch the light right across from Tony Rigatoni's Italian Kitchen and its Roof Top Tavern, seen in the photograph on the right. That rooftop patio looks kind of nice, and as I wait for the green, I often think of stopping in there one of these days. Perhaps before the concert the next time Michael Franti and Spearhead return to Red Rocks. 

The Secret Of Secrets

I just finished reading The Secret of Secrets, Dan Brown's latest international thriller featuring Robert Langdon, a professor of symbology. In this novel, Langdon is in Prague to attend a lecture by his girlfriend Katherine Solomon, a noetic scientist about to publish a groundbreaking book that will change the nature of our understanding of human consciousness. Basically, she has a theory that the out of body experiences of people in near-death situations can be replicated and that human consciousness is actually separate from the physical body. Which means it is possible for your mind to be at one with the universe, travel anywhere while your body remains in place, and even exist after death.  However, the morning after the lecture, Solomon disappears, and it becomes apparent that a mysterious organization wants to stop her book from being published, at any cost. Langdon desperately begins a search for her across Prague and soon realizes that it might be the U.S. government itself that is behind it all. Brown is the author of The Da Vinci Code, which was a big bestseller, and the best thing about these books is following the characters through exotic locales as they solve the mystery at hand, in this case throughout the City of Prague. I am glad I read the book, but in this novel, there is a lot of scientific detail about noetic science which to me slows the story down. And in fact, this book is almost 700 pages long, an astounding length for a thriller like this. It was an interesting story, I did like it, but this is not a book I would ever read again.