The Sloan's Lake Fall Bazaar

Yesterday I headed over to the Sloan's Lake Fall Bazaar to see what this festival was all about.  I only found out about this happening Sunday morning while surfing the web to see what events were taking place in Denver this past weekend.  I must say I am very taken with the Sloan's Lake neighborhood. To the north, it borders the Highlands, one of Denver's most popular addresses, and to the south and east, once a traditionally Hispanic neighborhood, it is rapidly being redeveloped into another haven for the wealthy and hip.  In any case, this festival was kind of a hybrid  - it featured booths selling a wide variety of products ranging from clothing to CBD oils, but also had a beer festival element added to it.  A fair number of micro-breweries had booths at the festival, and you could buy a glass for $15 and then buy beer tokens for $3.00 each, or else buy a small cup for $3.00 and get just a small sample from each booth for that same $3.00 token.  Of course, the great majority of the crowd were 20 somethings, and all seemed to be holding $15.00 glasses.  Honest to God, where the hell do they get all their money?

The festival was held just to the south of Sloan's Lake, and seemed to be sponsored by a restaurant and bar called Tap and Burger Sloan's Lake. The street where the festival was held is located between two recent additions to the neighborhood, a high rise condominium called The Lake House seen on the left side of the photograph on the right, and a new project just being built.  As you can imagine, parking was at a premium in this area, and so I parked a few blocks away, in front of houses that displayed signs in the front yard protesting the building of high rises in the area.  I am sorry to say that that particular battle is already lost.

Walking through the Sloan's Lake Fall Bazaar, packed to the gills with Gen Xers and Millennials, I kind of felt out of place.  I really don't understand these younger generations, at least the hipster variety (and NO, I am not an old fogey), and after wandering past the booths for a bit, I headed over to Sloan's Lake (the actual lake, not the neighborhood), and made a lap around it's perimeter. There I encountered parents with small children, senior citizens like me, and even lots of young people (no doubt rebelling against their hipster contemporaries) doing the same thing.  A note of hope in these trying times.