I’m supposed to be celebrating small adventures on this blog until I manage to have some bigger ones. In that spirit, I’ll begin this post with last night’s inaugural meeting of the Colorado Women’s Blogging Group, hosted by Beth Hayden. By the end, I think you’ll agree my subject is a large issue after all.

At least 40 of us crowded into a room at Boulder Digital Arts to talk about our blogs and listen to Beth’s presentation on search engine optimization (SEO). There was diversity of subject, from SEO to women’s health to “thriving, not just surviving” to Claire Walter’s blogs on Colorado cuisine and travel news to my rather garbled explanation of Restoration Nation. And those from half the room; people were almost done introducing themselves when I arrived late.

The real adventure, for me, is to see how women’s groups are still thriving in a metro area that’s considered to be rather progressive and has lower unemployment figures than much of the country. In July I attended the inaugural meeting of an editors group, and although most there didn’t call for it to be exclusively a women’s group, there were no men in attendance.

I don’t think I would call these groups consciousness-raising groups, since they don’t necessarily embrace gender issues, yet I find it notable that there are still so many of them, more than 40 years after the second wave of the feminist movement began in the 1960s. So many despite the fact that “feminist” became a bad word decades ago and still needs to be reclaimed. For example, I was just reading the August 2010 issue of the Denver Voice, the magazine sold by homeless people in the Denver Metro area, and the article “Pink Collar Glam” had the following comments about feminism: “Christine and I were just talking about feminism in the 70′s as being so angry and trying to be more like a man, very masculine. We think feminism should embrace femininity more. And not try to be so dominant, but being comfortable with the fact that we are women.”

I can just imagine feminists of the 1970s frothing at the mouth at the thought that they weren’t feminine. They were trying to EXPAND the definition of femininity. And if they were trying to dominate someone, they were doing so because they were tired of being dominated by men.

And then the interviewer replies: “Yeah, that wave of feminism in the 60′s and 70′s was somewhat of a failure because it was too angry and reactionary. It doesn’t make sense to counteract oppression by trying to re-oppress something else.”

I had to laugh at this author calling feminism reactionary. Look up the word, please. It means “ultraconservative.” It refers to retrenchment, not what 1960s feminism was about. Those women wanted, for example, to be able to apply for jobs and not be told, “We don’t hire women.” They weren’t trying to oppress anyone, though they may have been clueless about the needs of women of color and lesbians.

Todd and I talked about this subject today at lunch. He said if someone tried to put together a group of male programmers, for instance, people would laugh at the idea that men have more commonalities than differences. Apparently, women still feel they have more commonalities than differences. Is that a result of a second-class position in society, or have we simply gotten into the habit of thinking women’s groups will help us?

I told him about the comment I recently heard (from a woman) that women are more emotional than men. That’s nonsense: there are more emotional individuals, not more emotional sexes. If women seem more emotional than men, it’s because they are raised to express their emotions, not because they have more of them.

And then I remembered the almost-all-male fiction workshop I took through Lighthouse Writers, run by Viet Dinh. My young female character got called a tramp by another writer because she had sex with her boyfriend fairly soon after they met. Yet the very next week, when a man presented a story about a male character going to a prostitute, no one made any disparaging comments about the character. No one, including me, had the courage to point out that double standard. Instead, I quit the class and lost my money.

I’m not sure what’s going on here. Am I noticing sexism more because I’m older, or has sexism flowered in the last few years? I would have expected Hillary Clinton’s run for president to have reduced sexism, but I think it may have increased it. Perhaps it was the prospect that her campaign presented of women gaining so much power over men.

Of course, if women don’t get together in groups, how will they fight sexism? It’s not a fight that can be won on a individual level.

What do you think? Have you noticed more sexism lately? If so, what do you think is causing the increase?

For two years I’ve been a member of HouseCarers, a service that unites people who need housesitters with those who want to be the warm body in the house while its owners travel. I’ve never done a housesit, even though I know I need a good reputation on that site to get the best gigs. But this summer, I have hosted couchsurfers, and it’s been fun.

I was a little nervous about it at first. Our first couchsurfer was a photographer who shows his work in Taos but otherwise travels around the country in his van, taking pictures and camping and hiking. He’s done that for about 12 years. The Friday we spent in the same house, he was so quiet I got the urge to check on him. When I did, I found him charging batteries and such. We gave him a key one night when we were going to be out having dinner. Saturday he left to pick up his friend at the airport and take him to camping, as he put it.

Todd hosted a couchsurfer who sent out an emergency message looking for a place to stay on short notice.

And then last weekend both of us hosted 4 friends from California. They have been taking vacations together for a year or two, and at least one of them is trying to get to all 50 states.

Their schedule was intense. They planned to fly in Friday, drive across Colorado Saturday to raft the Colorado River in Glenwood Springs, drive back and see roller derby with us Saturday night, leave toward the end of the game and begin their drive to South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore, come back Sunday night, go tubing on Boulder Creek Monday morning, and then fly back to California.

It’s definitely not my style of travel, but I think they did a good job of seeing Colorado in a short time. They visited the Front Range, including Rocky Mountain National Park; drove through the mountains and back again; and saw the northern plains (though mostly in the dark). Mount Rushmore was included because they didn’t know when they would get this close to it again.

They were a lot of fun and very inclusive. They invited us to breakfast and other Monday morning adventures, so we got to hear stories from their other trips. And they were generous: when they found out my birthday was Tuesday, they bought me a cake and some gift cards. The cake was yummy. I had 3 pieces on Tuesday.

It reminded me that couchsurfers are a new breed of traveler, interested above all in making connections.

Starbucks latte and shortbread cookies do not really qualify as palate cleansers, but then again, I’m talking latte between two episodes of Hawaiian gorging. Plate lunch is not a refined food, so I may as well chase it with espresso.

On the way south to Golden, where Hawaiian Hut Barbeque is located, I had an iPhone episode. Google Maps works fine for me on the Blackberry, but I quail before the options on Todd’s phone. I read him a list of icons from the screen and asked what to do. Finally he pulled over and looked at it himself. Then he said, “Oh, you had it in pedestrian mode.” What kind of phone has pedestrian mode, anyway? I guess I should take a college-level course to figure out Apple’s intuitive design for this phone. I can’t help it, people; it flummoxes me.

I wonder if repeated iPhone episodes have ever propelled a couple into divorce court. It’s not the first time I’ve wanted to see how many times I could bounce the damn thing. (But, Grandmother, what a big screen you have!)

The first sign all is not right with HH BBQ: it sits just inside a home furnishings store. I suppose that’s not so much weirder than Rise and Shine being inside/next to a pizza shop. I ordered Loco Moco and Todd ordered chicken katsu.

Then the gods of food sent the second sign: the fire alarm went off. Apparently the heat-detecting smoke alarm over the stove had not been set high enough. While Todd and I stood far enough away from the alarm to be able to converse and a couple of firemen ambled over from the fire station next door, I took this picture of the building, which used to be a bowling alley.

The food came in styrofoam takeout containers with 1 large compartment and 2 small ones. The large section was lined with gooey white rice, topped by two hamburger patties (made in-house, according to our waiter), brown gravy, and two fried eggs. Another scoop of rice and a scoop of macaroni salad (made with fish flakes or canned tuna, I think), filled the other two compartments.

The first few bites pleased me, mostly because of their heat and the general gooeyness, but that soon gave way to the canned taste of the gravy. I ate both eggs and 1 burger, but I quickly got disenchanted with separating the rice from the styrofoam. Ever since a garlic pasta incident in the early 1990s—let’s just say Tagamet was involved—I prefer my food to have no contact with styrofoam.

Todd’s chicken katsu was dry and hard, but he liked the sauce and the macaroni salad. A sample of kahlua pork tasted mostly of liquid smoke, which Todd said was used to disguise the fact it wasn’t really smoked Hawaiian-style (wrapped in leaves and put in a pit to cook for a long time).

The best thing about Hawaiian Hut BBQ was the friendly staff. All three people there were attentive. The women’s bathroom, however, was not well thought out (sign number 3).

I suggested to Todd that we visit Oasis Grill, which a friend of ours had recommended as having good Hawaiian food. It’s in Aurora, but I figured that we were already in south Denver. Why not swing around to the eastern edge of the metro area?

Todd thought it was a crazy idea at first, but then he unexpectedly agreed, if I promised not to have any more iPhone episodes.

We found Oasis Grill in one of many strip malls but didn’t go in right away; instead, we went in search of a coffee shop. And then Todd realized the Starbucks was located 2 doors down from L&L’s, yet another Hawaiian place. (I don’t understand why wig stores and Hawaiian food concentrate on the southern edge of the Denver Metro area. Can anyone enlighten me?)

We hatched an even crazier plan: to sample food from 3 Hawaiian restaurants in one afternoon. Let the indigestion begin!

At L&L Hawaiian Barbecue, a chain with over 200 franchises, the fast food setting seemed more fitting for plate lunch, and the large pictures of Hawaiian landscapes reminded me of my honeymoon. I was disappointed that L&L also serves its food in styrofoam takeout containers: so far I was up to 5 styrofoam containers in one day.

But the food impressed me from the first bite. The rice was sticky, not gooey; the macaroni salad was a creamy yellow color, heavy on the mayo; and the BBQ chicken tasted of teriyaki, slightly sweet and tender. Todd liked the kahlua pork better, declaring it “more real.”

Then we packed up and returned to Oasis Grill. Once we skirted the pool table and talked to a waitress, we discovered the kitchen was closed. The staff there also does catering, and this Saturday they were off-site.

I can see another trip to Aurora in my future.

For a review of Da Hawaiian Grill, the kitchen at Oasis Grill, see Ruth Tobias’s post in Denver magazine.

On Friday my brother and I moved my father into the apartment where he’ll be staying for two weeks. If he likes the place, he may move there permanently. I had a long day of doing family stuff, but my sister worked Friday from 7:30 am to 6 or so and then helped Dad with various things. I left his apartment at 9 pm, and she didn’t get home until about midnight.

On Saturday, I took a bit of a break and drove around eastern Kansas City looking for the swimming hole my father and his friends swam in when they were kids. He said it was in the Blue River near 53rd and Hardesty and had a large tree growing out of it.

View Hardesty Ave & E 53rd St in a larger map
In the 1930s, when my father was riding his bike from his house on 39th and Benton to the swimming hole, the area south of 27th was called the South Side. (You can still see “South Side” signs in Kansas City; there’s one on Wornall near 75th.) Benton lies between Prospect and Cleveland; after it runs through Brush Creek Park, it ends at Swope Parkway.

I got lost a few times on the east side of Kansas City. I went too far north on Emanuel Cleaver Boulevard and found a remnant of Hardesty, but not the one I wanted. Google Maps directed me back south to Elmwood and the Blue Parkway and another remnant of Hardesty, where I drove to the end of 53rd Street and could see the Blue River sparkling below. There seemed to be no easy way to get down to it, though, and I wasn’t dressed for trekking through the brush. Also, I felt awkward poking around at the end of this narrow street.

I tried driving to the end of 51st Street but was stopped by two gates and what looked like a gravel pit below.

By then I was pretty frustrated, but Google gave me an idea: I could cross the Blue River and try to find Brighton Avenue (also called Denver Avenue), which ran north-south on its west side. When I crossed the river on Blue Parkway, I saw a fenced-off gravel road to the left just past the river, right where Brighton should be, but the first street I could actually drive up was Lawn. That road was so steep I had to force myself to keep going, and then I found myself in another maze of streets. I could have driven south and tried to access Brighton from 59th, but it was 5 pm, and I wanted to get back south.

I didn’t tell Dad about my trek. Instead, I decided I’d write a letter to the Kansas City Star and ask if any readers remembered the swimming hole.

This morning I walked the Santa Fe Trace trail behind my sister’s house, armed with one of my father’s canes. I took it not to lean on but to use as a weapon against any cobwebs that might ensnare me.

I must have torn down 5 cobwebs on a trail about two blocks in length through a remnant forest. Maybe more. I scared away a fawn, and I puzzled over the call of a bird that might have been a woodpecker, but what I remember was the threat of cobwebs: wielding the cane horizontally and vertically across the path to clear the webs and yet still lurching to a stop when a spider in its intricate web entered my peripheral vision.

And I thought, I’m glad there is no one else on this path, watching me wave this cane around as if it were an overgrown dowsing rod. I have become such a chicken.

Truth be told, I’m less afraid of spiders than I used to be. Occasionally I even spare the ones in my house, in my space; the small ones. Those outside, in their space, I let alone.

But that doesn’t mean I want to walk into their webs.

There is more life east of the 100th meridian. More trees, the street canopy of my childhood; more bugs; definitely more humidity. It’s been about 18 years since I spent a summer in the Midwest.

And I thought, My life in Colorado is so sanitized.

Perhaps this is the visit of revelations, or at least the visit of shrugging at uncomfortable truths.

That my father can’t take care of himself anymore and doesn’t want to admit it. And I do so wish to indulge him because I’m used to having him be stronger.

That being the baby of my family has made my life easier. Living in another state, I don’t have to deal with my father’s decline on a daily or weekly basis. I can swoop in, feel useful, and go home. Must be nice, eh?

So why does it cause me so much anxiety?

Finally this month I called an electrician to fix a switch that’s been going out for months. I come from a long line of procrastinators, but that’s not the only reason I took so long: I don’t like letting strangers into my house.

Not strangers at one of my parties (I meet them, and then they are friends), but specifically, strangers who arrive at my door to fix things.

In this case, I was anticipating embarrassment weeks in advance, because I wanted the electrician to investigate the mysterious, intermittent noise in my master bathroom (not a noise I’m making, thank you very much). It’s rhythmic, like a drip, but when I stand in the shower, I can clearly hear it coming from the fan over my head. And I never hear it when the shower is on.

I told this to the receptionist at WireNut, and she noted it. But she also talks in the reassuring voice one uses for children. I’m pretty sure she was talking that way before I mentioned the noise and the tiny entrance to my attic…

When E stepped into my house, he put hairnets on his shoes and I led him to the bathroom, where I explained that the switch was going out and that I would like him to investigate this noise. With a straight face, he said he would listen for it and that he would check out the attic. And then he gave me an estimate of $168.

The noise chose to be silent while E was here. Nevertheless, he climbed up through the closet into the attic (What is this, Narnia?) and looked at the fan from the top and discovered all the things amiss in the attic. He even had me climb up there and see how the duct from the shower had been taped to a hole in one of the main vents leading to the roof.

Great. Something else to fix. At first he said I should call a tinner, a word I didn’t know. But later he mentioned HVAC.

E went through WireNut’s standard spiel, called a “25-Point Electrical Safety/Energy Inspection.” He informed me that aluminum wiring was used in the 1970s because copper was needed for the Vietnam War and that the main problem with aluminum is its tendency to expand and contract, which loosens the connections. That was interesting.

I also learned I could replace the entire electrical panel because it’s maxed out ($2,000) and that the EMF levels in our house were 1,200 and should be 200.

I thought of asking whether reducing the radon levels wasn’t enough. By the time he was done, I was bored. Todd and I want to sell our house. We don’t want to put any more money into it than the inspector requires.

And then E made a fatal mistake: he began musing about his wife, who in discussing the renovation of their home asked him to remove a bearing wall. I was already feeling self-conscious about the noise in the bathroom that no one else hears. I didn’t need to be reminded how sexist fix-it guys can be.

His aside came between his presentation of all the things that were wrong with my house and my writing of the check. He had just explained why he’d changed the estimate to $217 (because he made the estimate before he took the cover off the switch and saw that the entire unit needed to be replaced). I asked, “Was this a binding estimate?” (The website implies that estimates are final.)

I still can’t believe I pushed that question out of my mouth. Todd, who was sitting downstairs at his work computer, was also impressed.

I remember my tone as polite, but maybe it was mean. Maybe it was the tone that inspired a former roommate to tell me I went for the jugular.

In any case, he caved almost instantly. I didn’t expect that.

The switch works now. I might even call WireNut again, because dealing with E was better than dealing with Jared, the last electrician I let in my house (in 2002). I think he worked for Candlelight Electric, which was recommended by Tom Martino.

I wish I could find an electrician I like as much as Brothers Plumbing. Their employees are always nice.

The day my brother flew back to Kansas City, Todd and I drove to Angel Fire, New Mexico. Bradleys from Texas and Colorado were meeting there for a family reunion.

From Friday morning until Monday night, I was with at least one person. That’s unusual for me. I spend most days working in my office, either editing or writing on my computer. In fact, I spend so much time alone that by Friday night, I’m ready to go out just as Todd begins to savor being at home for two days.

And it was rainy and cool all weekend. So there were 12 adults and 12 kids in two houses. A recipe for disaster, you say?

It wasn’t. I like being in a crowd, but I tend to stay near the edge, watch events, move from person to person. There’s so much going on I find it hard to concentrate.

In the past, I’ve blamed myself for not being a cocktail party playah. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve accepted my tendency to withdraw, find a way to be by myself, even when surrounded by people. It’s my way of resting in plain sight.

What I liked best was the swirl of children. There were two groups of four from two families, one group of three from another, and one new boy, my brother-in-law’s girlfriend’s son. I got to hold the newest baby several times, and she was kind enough not to cry when passed around from person to person.

My favorite part was watching the four-year-olds play together. Ring around the rosy (the adults warned them about hitting their heads against the rock hearth). Hiding in a nook under the coffee table. Head-butting the sofa (the adults worried about their brains spilling out before they managed to grow up).

In between were meals and the fixing of meals and the cleanup of meals, trips to Taos on a festival weekend, and one muddy hike. The schedule went out the window, mostly thanks to the weather.

The most shocking moment came when my brother-in-law, who organized the reunion, declared, “I am not a team player.” He was reminiscing about how much he had hated team-player activities in school and how he only participated because he had to. I had always thought he was a team player. And I, who never was a team player either, was stunned someone had the courage to say that out loud.

On Saturday night I took my brother to his first dance performance.

It’s always an adventure figuring out what my brother wants to do when he comes for his annual visit. I try to find new things for him to do, but sometimes it seems he’s happy to spend time at places he’s enjoyed in previous years.

The main problem, though, is his politeness. He’ll agree to just about anything I propose.

Nevertheless, I invited my brother and my husband to the First Annual Mile High Dance Festival at the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Amphitheatre (20th Avenue and Park, just across the parking lot from Safeway).

The festival was titled “Celebrating Dances of the Americas” in keeping with the Biennial of the Americas that’s been happening in Denver in July. I’m not sure what troupe was performing here in this wide shot; we arrived about an hour into the show.

In between performances, I coaxed my two men over to the right side of the stage. They sat on the grass, while I tried to figure out how to photograph dance without using a flash. At first it was like a cartoon chase: I ran in front of some people to a planter. Then I crouched beside the planter and started firing away. There were no really fabulous angles with a 55 mm lens, from behind the stage or in front of it, and once again I wondered why I have yet to buy a zoom.

I loved the detail on the dresses and headgear sported by Grupo Folklorico Sabor Latino. If only I had captured the stage lights shining through these skirts and the details of the female dancers’ hairstyles. In all my no-flash shots, I got one but not the other.

But these dancers were so exuberant, I couldn’t help but love them the most.

Best of all, my brother seemed to like it. And no one got upset that I ran around for an hour taking pictures.

As I hoisted my first gun ever, Kevin mentioned that my hands weren’t shaky. Since I was clenching my arms all the way up to my shoulders trying to aim and look tough, I didn’t feel that I was holding the gun steady.

The comment sounded like a compliment, but then I thought about all the stereotypes pertaining to women and guns. That brought me round to a ridiculous scene in the TV series Sons of Anarchy.

A woman has been raped by two skinheads. She runs into one of them (literally) while she’s out shopping and decides to follow him. She pulls a large gun out of her car and has it pointed right at his head when she hears him talking to his son on the cell phone. And then she can’t shoot him … because she’s a mother, and he’s a father.

Excuse me while I gag.

If I were in that situation, I’d pull the trigger twice as fast because then that boy wouldn’t be raised by a rapist and possibly grow up to be one himself. Removing rapists from the population is a good thing.

But at least her hands weren’t shaking.

Anyway. Kevin is the member of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers who organized this little caravan to the Family Shooting Center, located in Cherry Creek State Park. The idea was that authors could learn about the feel and smell and sound of firing a gun in order to write better about the subject.

I was nervous but excited. I was there because I’d learned how to disarm someone in Krav Maga, and I wanted to know what to do with a gun if I ever managed to wrest one from an assailant. I have no plans to create gun-toting characters.

I started out with a revolver, which I believe was a .38 special. Kevin showed me how to hold the gun, which was different from what I expected: I had to press the sides of my hands, underneath my thumbs, against each other, and wrap my fingers around the grip—except, of course, for the trigger finger. I can’t remember if I was supposed to support the other side of the gun with my left index finger. He reminded me to keep my fingers out of the way of any hot gases escaping from the chamber.

This revolver—I shot two—had almost no recoil, but the shells falling nearby (or on my shoulders) startled me. It took me a while to actually hit the target because I was aiming too low. Then I switched to the Glock 9mm. It had a little bit of recoil, but my main problem with it was pulling back the slide. I was trying to do that with my left hand, and it was difficult.

I had the same problem with the Walther (007′s gun).

My favorite was the .44 Magnum (Dirty Harry’s gun—notice a trend here?), but I wasn’t allowed to shoot a full magazine, just two bullets. I guess the ammunition is expensive. It had the worst recoil, of course, and it was quite heavy and deafening. Good thing I had those purple ear protectors on, which staff offered me because they matched my shirt.

Doug, who runs the center, was very generous, giving us a rather long lecture and then letting us practice for a couple of hours for $25. I think he lost money, since he usually charges a range fee, plus rental for the gun and the cost of the ammunition.

I definitely want to go back. I could take lessons there in shooting handguns, rifles, and shotguns. I could even practice archery, which I haven’t done since grade school, when I had my own set and practiced in the backyard (no neighbors were harmed).

It seems fitting that the first post on a blog recently retooled for the anxious middle-aged adventuress should be about losing things.

I have an active imagination. It’s one of the things that makes me a writer, but in everyday life it can be troublesome.

More than a decade ago, my husband and I redid all the bathrooms in the fixer-upper we bought. We were going out for dinner after shopping at Home Depot and had a new toilet in the back of the truck. I suggested we lock the shell, and he laughed at me. “What, you think someone’s going to steal a toilet?”

It seemed plausible to me. People steal copper from construction sites. Why not a brand-new toilet?

It’s become our private joke, but laughing about it hasn’t made me stop worrying. The other day I was digging up the yarrow infesting my backyard and decided to take a break. I slid my blue-and-gray work gloves onto the handles of the wheelbarrow and leaned the shovel up against it. Then I asked myself, “Should I move the wheelbarrow over by the compost pile? It’s so close to the fence here.”

In my defense, my house is surrounded by only a chain-link fence and looks out onto a park and open space. I’m glad I don’t have a privacy fence blocking my view of the mountains, but the low fence doesn’t keep anything out of my yard that wants to get in.

Still, would someone reach over the fence to grab a 14-year-old shovel? A wheelbarrow? The weeds?

No one did, of course, and if I put some of my garden decorations near the fence, they would probably stay put too. If someone did steal them, though, I would remember that—not the weeks or months or years they were there, but the moment they disappeared.

What does this have to do with adventure, you ask?

I still think about the short coat I left in a hostel in Paris when I was doing my junior year abroad. I still wonder how I lost my mother’s class ring.

If I’m going to travel extensively, I will lose things. It’s inevitable that one day I’ll set something down and it will be snatched up (like the backpack my young neighbor stepped too far away from on her tour of South America).

My question is, can I accept this loss?

I’m in the process of updating my website. I’ve got a new theme—Thesis—and I’m customizing it. It may take a little while.

After that, I’ll need to revise the About page, which is now out of date.

Eighteen months ago I started this blog with high hopes that I would make money off the Internet. Although I’ve made friends because of this blog and had a great time exploring Denver, I’ve spent at least $2,000 and have earned $11 (plus tax deductions). I want to use the time I spend exploring Denver and writing these posts to forward my ideas in other areas. So for now, this is the last post.

I’m debating whether to set up a city site about Denver as the first of many such sites about cities I visit. If I did, I would copy the review posts to that site and gussy them up a bit with SEO. I don’t see the point of taking everything off this site and breaking all the links I’ve spent 18 months getting, though, so the old reviews will stay here.

I’m also thinking of turning this site into a photography blog. That’s my passion now, and it’s been finding its way into posts here and there, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.

Whatever I decide to do, I need a break from writing posts. I’ll be using the time to recharge and catch up on all your doings, which I’ve been neglecting.

Have a great weekend. Spring is on the way.

I featured Commons Park Bridge in an earlier post. You can see the railings below in the bottom left corner of that picture.Commons Park, along Little Raven Street in Denver’s Central Platte Valley, offers wide lawns to walk your dog or play frisbee or sunbathe. Native plants fill the edges of the park down to the South Platte River trail.

I both love and hate to walk this bridge. It connects Commons Park, a park landscaped with native plants along Little Raven Street in Denver’s Central Platte Valley, with Commons Park West, a newish condo development on Platte Street. It provides great views of the South Platte River, but whenever I stand there while someone goes by on foot or on a bike, I shiver at the vibrations. Commons Park offers wide lawns to walk your dog or play frisbee or sunbathe. Native plants fill the edges of the park down to the South Platte River trail.

Denver bridges are the subjects of my photos posts this week, on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. One of my favorite subjects is the span over I-25 that connects Lower Highlands to the Central Platte Valley. I took this photo from the courtyard at 16th and Platte Streets, with Colt and Gray restaurant on my left and Salvagetti Bicycle Workshop to the right.  I had some fun playing with the black point in this picture, which produces results similar to increasing contrast.

My first post about the Cross Community Coalition’s Environmental Justice Tour, on Monday, presented a poorly lit picture of the last farmhouse in Globeville. My second post, on Wednesday, offered several photos of the housing stock in Globeville, Elyria, and Swansea.

Today I want to show you some of the heavy industry that surrounds and permeates these neighborhoods. I’m sorry I haven’t provided a map for any of these posts: it took me a long time to figure out the route of most of the tour. I’ve included cross streets in the discussion below, so if you’re motivated, you can go to Google Maps, search for “Globeville, Denver,” and find the places I’m talking about.

I’ll begin with Valu Tires, at 40th and Steele, which turns into Vasquez north of I-70. Michael Maes, the tour guide, said that a number of junkyards have moved into these three neighborhoods but have avoided the ban on junkyards by calling themselves “recycling centers.” Now, there is a Discount Tire Company a few blocks from our house in Broomfield, but there isn’t a big pile of tires right next to it. Discount Tire either stores them inside the building or orders them as needed. The tour continued up Steele to Vasquez, where I snapped this long-distance picture of Xcel’s Cherokee Station (the red-and-white smokestack with the plume on the center-left) and the Suncor refinery to the right.We continued up Vasquez to 56th and down Brighton Boulevard to York, in the process going by this Suncor building, which is across the street (more or less) from Riverside Cemetery.As far as I can tell, we then took York to 58th and headed west to Franklin, where I took a picture of the last farmhouse in Globeville featured in Monday’s post. But from the map in Google, I get the impression that we drove up to 64th because we got so close to the red-and-white smokestack of Xcel’s Cherokee Station (part of the bus window is in this picture), and to the trains hauling coal.We went south, past the Purina Puppy Chow plant at York and I-70 (built in 1930, so I guess they routed I-70 around it when they built it in the 1960s),and then drove east and north to reach the northern part of Swansea, where I took the picture of the house without sewers featured in Wednesday’s post. Then we ended the tour back at the Cross Community Coalition offices,which are just across the railroad tracks from the Eaton Metals building (I’m not sure if that building is being used right now)and only a couple of blocks from the Growhaus at 48th and York.

I feel odd writing a review of two restaurants right in the midst of publishing my photos from Globeville, Elyria, and Swansea. I’d like to spend a little more time in those neighborhoods, go to Panadería Emmanuel and Bomaretto’s Produce and the nevería (ice cream parlor) I saw on the Environmental Justice tour.

Garbanzo Mediterranean Grill has locations all over Denver, including the University of Denver area, where we went, and Aurora, but nothing north of I-70. And D Bar Desserts, on 17th Avenue west of Park, sits in the midst of gentrification.

The only gentrification I saw on the tour was Globeville Townhomes, and since gentrification moves low-income people out of neighborhoods, and the people in these neighborhoods want to stay (at least, according to Michael Maes of Cross Community Coalition and Tom Anthony of the Elyria Neighborhood Association), I can’t say I’m in favor of it. I would recommend that the Denver City Council stop forcing industrial development down the throats of people who don’t want to live among it.

And, yes, the lady is protesting too much.

Last Friday Todd and I went to Garbanzo on University near Evans for dinner before Amiri Baraka’s reading at DU. Garbanzo is a fast casual joint that claims to place an emphasis on freshness. However, as Todd said, the tomato and cucumber salad on the right in the picture below had been sitting out all day, and the minty tabbouleh, made with couscous instead of bulgur wheat, had an odd sticky texture that might have been more palatable if it hadn’t also been cold.

We didn’t see a rotisserie there; the pictures on the wall indicated that the shwarma comes in chunks rather than being shaved off a large piece of meat.

The falafels, however, were hot out of the fryer and crispy. The tahini made a nice contrast, but the cilantro sauce didn’t have much oomph. One other thing I liked about the falafels was the liberal use of green herbs in the dough, which lent them a bright appearance and a fresh flavor.

Dinner lasted about 20 minutes, so we had time to kill and nowhere to do so before Baraka’s reading. Amiri Baraka is certainly an accomplished poet and critic (e.g., Blues People), and it may be that he is committed to social justice like no other American writer, as his website says, but he is also an anti-Semite, recycling hateful 9/11 conspiracy theories that were debunked years ago. ‘Nuff said.

All in all, it was a relief to get to D Bar, which was packed as always on a weekend night, and stand around until seats opened up at the communal table. The place is a haven for me. We would have preferred to sit at the bar and talk to the chefs, but instead we talked to the mother and daughter, the couple, and the man with his novel also sitting at our table. Todd got the dressed avocado, which isn’t on the menu anymore (pictured here from an earlier visit), and then the ice cream sandwich.

I got the palmond³, and I’m still trying to locate the 3 uses of pear and 3 uses of almond. The menu describes it this way: palmond³—pear I will actually eat—pear³ almond³ caramelized white chocolate ·pom ·almond ice milk.

Some are easy, of course, like the pear halves and the ball of almond ice milk. I assume the cake on the bottom has almonds and pears in it, and the caramelized white chocolate is the custardy thing between the cake and the pears. But then I thought, What if the sugary crumbs underneath the pears are the caramelized white chocolate and the custard is made with almond and pear? And what about the “pom,” which usually means passionfruit, orange, and mango juice but in this case refers to pear.

I started this post with gentrification and ended it with puzzlement over dessert. Must be nice, eh?

When I joined the Cross Community Coalition‘s Environmental Justice tour on February 17, one of the things tour guide Michael Maes stressed was the importance of preserving and increasing housing in these neighborhoods. He said if the brownfields were cleaned up and neighborhoods were properly laid out, Denver could add hundreds more houses without clearing land out on the edges of the city.

Some of the houses we saw on the tour date to the 1880s. Along with Highland(s) and Five Points, the neighborhoods of Globeville, Elyria, and Swansea (moving east from the intersection of I-25 and I-70) have some of the oldest housing stock in Denver. The latter three neighborhoods used to be home to 3 smelters; the only one that persisted long into the twentieth century was Asarco. In the 1990s, the Cross Community Coalition pursued a class action suit against Asarco for heavy metal pollution and won monetary damages and an agreement to replace the top 12 inches of soil in any house in Globeville. (I think it was any and all houses, but I may be using too broad a brush here; I know that Elyria and Swansea had some soil cleaned up around houses, but it wasn’t done as extensively in the latter 2 neighborhoods. Those 2 neighborhoods are a Superfund site, VB I-70. VB stands for “Vasquez Boulevard.”)

I asked Michael if there was a scientific basis for replacing only 12 inches of soil, and he said that it was an economic decision. If you clean down to 2 feet, say, you can’t afford to clean up as many yards.

I saw this house early on; it reminded me of houses in Broomfield’s First Filing neighborhood. (Please note all photographs were taken through a bus window. Some are clearer than others.) At the other end of the spectrum are the Globeville Townhomes at 51st and Logan, which were built on remediated land. Most of the townhomes are Section 8 rentals, but 12 units are on sale for up to $193,000. These new townhouses are a few blocks east of I-25, a few blocks north of I-70, and have a rail line running along their eastern edge. Xcel Energy’s Cherokee Station, a coal-fired power plant with the red-and-white smokestack visible from I-25, is located west of York between 58th and 64th.

A woman who works for Habitat for Humanity was on the tour, and she said Habitat had done blower-door tests on a townhouse and found that it wasn’t very energy-efficient. So let’s see: we have townhomes that are built on a brownfield, priced beyond what people in the neighborhood can pay, and not that eco-friendly. It’s not surprising that only 1 unit has sold.

Across the street are the old headquarters for Asarco (the red buildings) and the rail line beyond the 2 fences.

We drove all over north Denver on this tour, and I couldn’t always keep track of where we were going, but this house is located at the corner of St. Paul and 52nd in north Swansea. I’m not sure if it’s a new house or has just been renovated, but it looks pretty nice. Take a look, though, at the bottom left corner: there are no sewers.

Michael Maes stressed that family life was important to people who lived in these neighborhoods and that the neighborhoods are important to the families who live there. Despite the enterprise zone, there’s still lots of housing, and Maes definitely thinks there could be a lot more. Certainly people in Elyria, who are fighting a proposed realignment of I-70 right by Elyria Park (on 48th, between High and Race Streets), would like their housing values to increase (they’ve declined since the plans to realign I-70 were announced).

I walked by My Brother’s Bar in Denver’s South Platte neighborhood many a time and could not fathom what might be happening behind the white half-curtains. This Denver landmark has a symbol outside but no sign. I was, I confess, a bit intimidated. Would it be one of those bars where a bunch of paunchy men turned around in unison and squinted at me?

Now I’ve been there twice, both times with company, and I can confidently say that I wouldn’t mind going there by myself and taking a seat at the bar. Though I’m not sure how long I would stay, because the round-back chairs are nowhere near as comfortable as the atmosphere.

My Brother’s Bar, at 15th and Platte Street, just northwest of the South Platte River, is known for being “Denver’s oldest saloon still serving booze on the original site,” according to Tom Noel. An establishment called “Highland House” opened there in 1873 and served Denver’s Italian immigrant community. In the late 1800s, the neighborhood sometimes called Lower Highlands and sometimes called the Central Platte Valley (even though the river is named the South Platte) was sparsely settled. Since then, several different bars have come and gone in that corner building, and the neighborhood is one of Denver’s trendiest.

The bar has a reputation for making good burgers, so when Todd and I went there one Saturday, that’s what we ordered. I chose the jalapeno cream cheese burger, and Todd negotiated with the waitress over a chili cheeseburger. She said she could bring him a cheeseburger and a cup of chili, but not the two together. When she brought our order, we understood why: the burgers are served wrapped in paper rather than on a plate. Saves washing dishes, I guess.

Todd and I liked our burgers well enough, but many of the ingredients seemed to have come out of a can or a box: definitely the chili, and possibly the jalapenos in this cream cheese.

Although the onion rings and fries looked good, the rings were too crispy.

I got a kick out of this condiments caddy, which has 2 sides so you can put it in the middle of a table and let people dress their burgers without fighting over the onions and relish.

If you want a great burger, I recommend Larkburger (there are locations in Boulder and Greenwood Village). If you want atmosphere, go to My Brother’s Bar, where the host says, “Have fun!” and the servers are mellow and Girl Scout Thin Mints are stacked along the front wall and up the stairs. The menu offers a variety of bar food, including vegetarian items. You can drink a glass from a small but quirky wine list or a craft beer such as Twisted Pine or Samurai or order from the full bar.

My Brother’s Bar is on the Beat Poetry Driving Tour of Denver.

On February 17 I took an Environmental Justice tour of the Globeville, Elyria, and Swansea neighborhoods sponsored by the Cross Community Coalition. I heard of it through Transition Denver and the Growhaus, located in the old Lehrer Flowers building on York between 47th and 48th.

The tour guide, Michael Maes, said Globeville (located around the intersection of I-25 and I-70; Elyria and Swansea are to the east, with York as their dividing line), used to be the “garden” area of Denver, with lots of small gardens and truck farms. People could drive there and buy produce from the farmers’ trucks. But the last farm in the area sold out five years ago. It’s located on Franklin, but unfortunately I didn’t write down the cross-street (58th, perhaps?). It’s the dark house on the right in the photo. The beige building on Franklin was built in the past five years.Maes said there are 6 Superfund sites within a 2-mile radius of these neighborhoods (and that Swansea and Elyria are one of those Superfund sites). There is an oil refinery in this area, at least 1 coal-burning plant, and a water management plant.

Michael grew up in the area and has lived there all his life. He was there when Denver decided to approve an enterprise zone in the city, which allows business and industry to move in. On the tour, I saw streets where businesses had bought a couple of lots and torn down the houses and put some kind of business in its place. How would you feel if someone bought the 2 houses next to you and turned those lots into industry?

If you want more information about Growhaus, I suggest contacting Wild Green Yonder, a site focused on sustainability and the grow local movement.

I’m ending my obsession with all things Titusville with a post featuring dueling signs.

I almost drove off Highway 50 when I saw the sign below. Cheney Highway! No way the VP deserves to have a highway named after him. But after a few days driving around Titusville, I noticed Old Cheney Highway as well. So I think the name dates to an earlier time.I love the juxtaposition of signs here, especially “No Outlet.”

Speaking of strange combinations, this sign at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge really makes you think Florida officials have no sense of humor…or fun. Why can’t I walk nude on the beach with a dog leash in one hand and a metal detector in the other?

I don’t usually photograph birds because I don’t have the lenses for it, but on my drive around Black Point Wildlife Drive in Titusville, I couldn’t resist stopping for this great egret out hunting (I also saw a wood stork hunting, but it was too dark to photograph by then). I didn’t know that a bird could get its neck in this position.

Here’s another view of the same bird. Keep in mind these pictures were taken with an 18-55 mm kit lens and are heavily cropped. I wish I could get them a little sharper, but really the only way to fix this problem is to use a telephoto lens.

My friend from Orlando was rhapsodizing about the waves at Cocoa Beach two Saturdays ago. I kept looking at them and thinking, “Aren’t they kind of small?” But then, he knows how to surf and I don’t.I got my thrills playing with the photos. I wasn’t satisfied with the gray cast of the photos, taken at about 6 pm, so I turned up the contrast and then shadows to get the effect above. Today I just discovered monochrome mixer, which turns color photos into black and white. Here’s a detail from the photo above.Of course, Aperture 3 just came out. So I might as well quit playing around with this version and learn the new one.

I’ve saved the best from our trip to Titusville, Florida, for last: Dixie Crossroads. We ate there the first and last nights of our visit.

From the outside (which I didn’t photograph because it would have required standing in the highway), it’s not much: just a large restaurant along Garden Street in downtown Titusville (Highway 406) with a big orange sign spelling out its name.

We began our first visit in the “gazebo,” otherwise known as the bar, which had just opened for the season that February night. Our waitress busied herself cleaning, but we managed to chat about snow in the South before we were summoned to our table.

The restaurant was full that Friday, so the hostess tucked us into a little room in the back with a waitress named Patti. She brought us beer, a Villa Maria chardonnay from New Zealand, which was soft and medium-bodied, and corn fritters. I ate far too many of those sweet little devils.

I loved this square, substantial, paper napkin (it’s on top of the menu). Both menus were made from paper (online, the entrees are divided into “seafood” and “not seafood”). The waitress, who definitely knew her stuff, suggested the large Royal Red shrimp, which live 1,200 feet down and are fished by only a few intrepid captains. I ordered the Royal Red dinner, broiled, and Todd ordered the “Shellfish”: breaded rock shrimp, scallops, and more shrimp of a variety I can’t recall.

We could have ordered the Best of the Cape [Canaveral] Shrimp Special, featuring 1 dozen each of rock, Royal Red, brown, and white shrimp. Never having encountered “brown” or “white” shrimp before, we were intrigued but didn’t think we could eat 25 shrimp each.

I’ve had a lot of shrimp in my life, but never before have I bitten into one and said, “That is beautiful.” The Royal Red were the most tender, flavorful shrimp I’ve ever had.

Todd’s rock shrimp were decent, but the scallops (on the right) were small. I much preferred the meal he had on our second visit: shrimp and grits flavored with bacon. I had Royal Red and Villa Maria chardonnay both times (as well as a much drier Placido pinot grigio), and finished my 5-day visit to Florida with key lime pie, which, frankly, didn’t taste any better than key lime pie I’ve had in the Denver area. Of course, the limes weren’t in season.

If you visit Titusville, you might as well go to Dixie Crossroads and try the Best of the Cape Special. Let me know how it was, OK?

I’ve been busy this week with copyediting deadlines. Next week I’ll post my review of Dixie Crossroads, my favorite restaurant in Titusville, Florida, but I’m rounding out this week with one of my favorite gull photos from Cocoa Beach.I like the shadows in this one, including mine and Todd’s.

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On February 20 (Saturday), Denver Restaurant Week begins. It lasts until March 5 (that is, two weeks).

Denver Artopia, sponsored by Westword, is Saturday from 7 pm to 2 am.

The night after the launch of space shuttle Endeavour, Todd and I had dinner at El Leoncito, a Mexican and Cuban restaurant on the Washington side of Highway 1 (northbound) in Titusville. The parking lot was full when we arrived at 7 pm.

Todd and I ordered mojitos, which were sweeter than he would have made them, and a tad watery. The old-school waiter brought black bean soup as an appetizer. I misunderstood him when he asked if I wanted onion and cheese on it; I thought he was suggesting it for the picadillo. He spoke softly and not very clearly.

Of the 8 Cuban dishes on the menu, I ordered picadillo, which like shepherd’s pie features ground beef and potatoes but adds raisins and a sofrito base (onion, garlic, tomato, peppers). Unlike the salty picadillo I had at Cuba Cuba in Denver, this dish was warm and spicy and made me want to keep eating it. And I didn’t need to hunt for the raisins.

Todd ordered palomilla, or top sirloin served Old Havana style (half an inch thick). It was a bit tough and not as flavorful as the picadillo.

El Leoncito also lists churrasco under the Cuban dishes; it is an Argentinian-style steak marinated in mojo de ajo, topped with chimichurri paste, and served on a sizzling pan.

The plantains were dark and moist, the best I’ve ever had. The Cuban bread looked like smashed bread-biscuits. I didn’t care for it.

By the end of the meal I was annoyed with our waiter. A young man, he was courtly to me but handed the check to Todd and was always calling him “senor.” These days he could at least put the check in the middle of the table and let us decide.

El Leoncito had quite the hall of celebrities by the bathrooms, including signed pictures by Andy Garcia and Tiger Woods.

No question that Caffe Chocolat was a find in downtown Titusville. Every city needs a coffeeshop/sweet shop/cafe with a choco-cam, especially if you’re dealing with the frustration of major roadwork all the way through downtown.

At first it wasn’t easy to find. During our fabulous shrimp dinner Friday night at Dixie Crossroads, I was yearning for a chocolate shop I’d never even visited, and when we finally found it after driving up and down Washington and Hopkins, I was unhappy to learn that it wasn’t open until 10 pm after all.

On Saturday, Todd thought I was going to have a fit when the first door I tried was locked. The store was open; I just had to find the entrance. And once I did, I ordered a caramel latte and 8 chocolates (from left to right, caramel, rum meltaway, key lime, and champagne in the lower-left corner). I was planning to share those chocolates with a friend from college and his family, but by the time we met up with them at 5 pm in Cocoa Beach, I had eaten them all, with a little help from Todd.

I’ll bet this gull would have helped too, but that’s another story.

We didn’t get back to Caffe Chocolat until Monday, after we had watched the space shuttle launch and slept through morning and lunchtime. Luckily, they are open until 7. We arrived about 2 pm for a late lunch.

Of the gyro and Greek salad I ordered, the salad with its tangy Aegean dressing was my favorite. The gyro was fine, but I prefer the ingredients in a crisp pita that’s been slit open, rather than a soft pita wrapped around them.

Todd had a roast beef sandwich, which he liked because it was “basic and had fresh stuff on top.” I liked his creamy potato salad but wasn’t as excited about the French onion soup—the broth tasted thin.

That afternoon, I returned Todd to the hotel and went to the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge for a little birding. It was a good thing I did, because his lunch haunted him all afternoon.

And then, after the painted bunting and the wood stork hunting along Black Point Wildlife Drive (2 new life birds for me), I had to visit Caffe Chocolat again. Their dark chocolate truffles are the best of the 5 truffles I tried. The wafer-thin sugar-free peppermint patties aren’t bad either; they have a slight aftertaste.

Caffe Chocolat, which has been in business for 6 or 7 years, is one of three coffeeshops within a few blocks. This interior shot shows the main room; there are large rooms on either side. Sunrise Bread Company, across the parking lot on the Hopkins side of Highway 1, offers coffee and smoothies and bagels and bread, but no sandwiches. (I was turned off by Sunrise’s notice about 24-hour video surveillance, but my smoothie was good.) The Coffee Shoppe is located up the road on Washington. I didn’t go there.

There’s an establishment called Medical Weight Loss Solutions across Washington from Caffe Chocolat. I’m glad to see downtown Titusville has all its bases covered.

The past weekend I saw 2 films at the Denver Jewish Film Festival: Bruriah and The Fire Within: Jews in the Amazonian Rainforest. Both were good, although I think the latter, director Lorry Salcedo Mitrani’s first film, had better production values.

Bruriah is a story within a story, in which modern-day Bruriah is obsessed with the tale of second-century Bruriah, a learned woman who questioned the rabbinic claim that women are “light-minded.” In response, her husband sent one of his students to seduce her.

The only thing that bothered me about this film was that it never questioned the right of men to mess with women in this way. It reminded me of Atanarjuat in that respect.

The Fire Within explores the history of the Jews who settled in the town of Iquitos, Peru, and made a living in the rubber trade at the turn of the twentieth century. Many of them had children with indigenous women, and after a generation or two they stopped practicing Judaism. The movie chronicles how modern residents of Iquitos reconnected with their Jewish roots and eventually migrated to Israel.

The festival runs through February 20 and shows films you won’t see anywhere else. Check it out.

Our trip to see the last night launch of the space shuttle (STS-130 Endeavour on February 8, 2010) included a lot of dining out and birding, which I’ll be writing about this week. I’ll start with the worst restaurant, Dogs R Us on Highway 1. (Please note that Highway 1 splits into Washington northbound and Hopkins southbound. The restaurant is on Hopkins.)

We noticed Dogs R Us Friday night, after eating at Dixie Crossroads on Garden Street. It’s located next to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals thrift store, which we thought was pretty twisted.

From the inside, Dogs R Us resembles a large house. Otherwise, it might as well be a Hooters: the waitresses are all pretty and skinny and dressed in black short-shorts and pantyhose and low-cut referee tops. Even so, the place was packed with families and was surprisingly quiet. Georgetown was playing Villanova on one of the big screens. The service was slow but good; when we asked our waitress for something, she calmly said, “Just give me a second; I’ve got to catch up a second.”

Todd didn’t like his dogs much, though. He said the Coney Island dog (mustard, onions, chili) was good, but the other was only “reminiscent of a Chicago dog.” It needed real sports peppers and “nuclear relish.”

I ordered the Fresh Catch meal, which surprisingly for Florida, turned out to be mahi-mahi, a Pacific fish. I took a few bites of the sandwich and then just ate the fish, which had so little Cajun seasoning I could hardly taste it. The fish was cooked properly, though.

If you go to Dogs R Us, go because you like sports bars, not for the food. Steve’s Snappin’ Dogs in Denver has nothing to worry about, that’s for sure.

I had a great time at the shuttle launch Monday night (the second attempt). At one point Todd and I practiced the foxtrot to keep warm, which was harder on Monday than on Sunday, since we were out by the water (on the NASA causeway/parkway/405) for more than 3 hours in 45 degree temps. That’s why everyone here by the shuttle clock is so bundled up.

I had researched what exposure I needed for the launch itself: ISO 400, shuttle speed 1/125 of a second, and aperture of f8. The problem was, to get a picture of the shuttle before it launched, I needed a much longer exposure (5 seconds). And even with a tripod, the image was blurry (this is a tiny detail of the entire photograph, taken from 7 miles away with a 18-55 mm lens).If you squint, you can make out a shuttle shape. The problems began as the rocket boosters started up. If I had bothered to check my exposure then, I could have reset the shutter speed to 1/125 of a second. But at a 5-second exposure, this is what I got: a very bright light and shadows.It was lit, all right. And I just kept clicking away at those 5-second exposures.The clouds of steam are produced by the water involved in the noise suppression system. Eventually the shuttle got far enough away that my camera could record its shape again.Todd was happy afterward. He posted a detailed description of the launch and lots of links about STS-130 Endeavor.And we were both happier after breakfast at IHOP at the Days Inn in Titusville.

My friend and I stopped in at Mad Wine and Cheese in the middle of visiting the Denver Art Museum last Wednesday. (Here’s a shot taken on an earlier visit.) The kids got chocolate chip bread at Novo Coffee, and we ordered wine and cheese. I felt pretty decadent to be drinking wine before 4 o’clock. Livin’ large, I guess.

In fact, you could live in the museum residences above Mad Greens, and find salad and coffee and dessert and wine and cheese at the restaurant, and go see art. You’d hardly ever have to leave that one block.

Here’s the cheese plate we ordered for $15. (The two glasses of wine we ordered cost nearly $20.)

From left to right, the cheeses are Manchego (Spain), Roomano (a 4-year-old Gouda from southern Holland), and Barely Buzzed, from Beehive in Utah. The latter is rubbed with coffee grounds. The dark stuff in the spoon is a tart plum spread. I liked all three cheeses, but my favorite was the Roomano.

I had the privilege last Wednesday of visiting the Embrace! exhibit at the DAM for the second time (yes, it’s that good) in the company of two children who made it come alive.

The DAM solicited a bunch of artists to create the Embrace! exhibits using the strange geometry of the Hamilton Building.

The first exhibit, on the ground floor, uses the walls but doesn’t take quite as much advantage of the corners as some of the others. Rupprecht Matthies asked immigrants to Denver to give him words (in any language) describing their initial experiences here and then carved the words in wood, plexiglass, and foam. The words were finished with help from volunteers, staff, and visitors. For example, the words on the walls themselves were supplied by visitors to the museum, who can add a favorite word to a card. The word is then cut out and put on the wall.

Kids can pick up the foam words and read them or, if they’re not familiar with the language or alphabet, read the translation.

My favorite exhibit was “Chamber” by Charles Sandison. Using projectors and computer-generated words, numbers, letters, and symbols, he created the effect of a room lit by firelight. We had fun playing with our shadows and trying not to let the lights “get us.” This man had the right idea: lie down and watch the patterns.

My friend’s children were fascinated by this exhibit, “Mirage,” by Zhong Biao, especially the funhouse mirrors. Here’s a small section in closeup.

Possibly the kids’ favorite exhibit was this one by Tobias Rehberger. Several of the Embrace! exhibits encourage visitors to touch, but Rehberger’s installation lets you walk (or, more accurately, struggle) through the bungee cords. If you look closely, you’ll see a child in the back. You’ll also see a window on the left with bright colors peeking through it. That installation takes up several floors.

I’ve shown you only 4 of the Embrace! exhibits, though we saw about twice that many, and there are at least 3 that I missed, even in 2 visits. As my friend’s daughter said late that afternoon, “But we haven’t seen all of it.”

We did, however, get some good cheese at Mad Greens and Wine.

I’ll leave you with this moody photograph of the back entrance to the museum. There’s a woman standing in the top right; it’s easiest to locate her by her shadow.

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Todd and I will be in Florida next week. I’ll be posting about that trip as well as a visit to the Denver Art Museum.

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Oh, tragedy! Wen Chocolates is closing. I’d probably pine away and die, but I think it will still be possible to order William Poole’s chocolates online.

I am forced to write a wordy post about the Genghis Khan exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, because no one was allowed to take photographs. Some materials in the exhibit were contributed by private individuals, including the body of a Mongolian woman. The emphasis on showing respect for the human remains struck me as unnecessary and odd. Perhaps there was a museum incident I missed?

My only photographs come from the approach to the exhibit, which was on the third floor. Going upstairs in the DMNS always activates my fear of heights; on Sunday I told Todd it felt as if my whole body was fizzing, starting in my belly and going out from there.

This fin whale hangs in the back of the museum: its head points toward the front of the museum, and its tail reaches out to Genghis Khan on his throne, right next to the group of red hat ladies who came to visit.

And here’s a closer view of the entrance to the Phipps Special Exhibits Gallery, which was rebuilt in 2009. Genghis Khan is the first exhibit in the remodeled gallery.

The Museum is seeking LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for the Phipps Gallery project. Construction crews used low-emitting materials in construction, and the gallery is designed to consume less power overall. In addition, 17,254 pounds of materials from the old gallery were reused in the new gallery, saving tons of trash from the landfill. The terrazzo floor covering outside the gallery includes 4,000 pounds of recycled crushed beer bottles.

Getting into the exhibit was a slow process. First we waited outside for the vestibule to clear, and then we waited inside the vestibule. Even so, there were people 2 and 3 deep around each exhibit.

In the vestibule, we received cards printed with a name: mine was Börte, the first wife of Genghis Khan (then called Temüjin). As the mother of his four heirs, she became a powerful woman in her own right, as did her daughters.

Kiosks throughout the exhibit gave snippets of information about each character. Todd complained that his character was just some guy and that the same thing had happened at the Titanic exhibit as well: he was a third-class passenger who drowned, whereas I was rich enough to get a seat on one of the boats.

Whoever designed the exhibit had taken care to promote the contributions of women. Höelün, Temüjin’s mother, survived ejection from her husband’s clan after his murder and kept her 7 children alive on the steppes until Temüjin could begin his ascent.

And one of Genghis Khan’s daughters led an attack in Central Asia.

I had mixed feelings, however, about the note that women played an important role in battles: they killed the wounded and collected the arrows.

Hmm, killing the wounded. Now there’s a noble profession. Yanking arrows out of dead (or dying) bodies is right up there too.

This exhibit rekindled my ambivalence about force. I had a great time taking Krav Maga self-defense classes for 2 years. I still dream of being a modern-day freelance warrior, but then reality, in the form of my inability to do even 1 pull-up, does intrude.

The larger the scale of force, the more it bothers me.

I admire Temüjin for uniting clans who were continually attacking each other; they repaid the favor (which involved killing the clan leaders and promoting their subordinates) by declaring him Genghis Khan, or sovereign ruler. But why should I admire Kublai Khan, his grandson, for uniting China? Why does China need to be united? Why must empires expand? No matter how far we push out the borders, there will always be an enemy on them. Why not just live with it?

I also admire Genghis Khan for supporting all religions and encouraging the arts and sciences.

All that conquest, though, past the point of uniting the Mongols? Pure ego.

***

The exhibit ends by showing us modern-day Mongolians. The population in Denver, 2,500 to 3,000, is the largest in the United States; Mongolians like Denver’s climate. Denver has been Ulaanbator’s sister-city since 2002, and there is a City of Ulaanbaatar park near Lowry.

On Sunday, approximately half the members of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science decided to show up when we did.  Oh, well, at least we had biscuits in our bellies.

We had an hour to amuse ourselves before we could get into the Genghis Khan exhibit, so we wandered around until we found my favorite exhibit at the museum: Vasily Konovalenko’s gem carvings. As you may or may not be able to tell from this sign, the guy was self-taught. He became famous for his carvings in Russia, and then he emigrated to the United States in 1981. The DMNS has the largest collection of his carvings outside Moscow.

Almost everything about this servant is carved from gems, except the tray.

It was a bit of a challenge to photograph the figures, between the low light and the reflective cases. This detail from a strolling couple has eye-popping colors. The bodies are carved from quartz. My favorite carving is this one, of three singers, one with a balalaika (on the left) and one with a horn. DMNS uploaded a few pictures of other carvings to Flickr.

Rise and Shine Biscuit Kitchen and Cafe, located at 330 Holly in the same space as Basil Docs, is not exactly in our neighborhood here in Broomfield. But once we decided to spend the day at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science with Genghis Khan and other notables, a biscuit sounded like just the thing to power us through the museum.

Both the Boone biscuit (avocado, lettuce, tomato, mayo) and the Charlotte (bacon instead of avocado) tempted me, but I settled on a biscuit with jam. This biscuit was densely layered and crisp on top from all the butter in the recipe. It tasted the way a biscuit should.

Rise and Shine is a small place, with seating for 5 or 6 people. Therefore I was impressed that the staff brought our food and drinks (a mocha and a hot chocolate) to our seats, rather than handing them over the counter.

My second choice, the biscuit cinnamon roll, was a rather odd amalgam of the two: it had the cinnamon roll’s flavor and shape but the biscuit’s texture. The frosting was perfect—not too sweet.

I’m still partial to Lucille’s biscuits, which are, as Rise and Shine proprietor Seth Rubin told Denveater, cake-like and sheet-cut. I like the way they crumble, which I suppose no self-respecting biscuit should do.

Todd had an egg biscuit and then a cheese and sausage biscuit, which I enjoyed most for its flavorful sausage. I have to confess that when I eat a biscuit topped with eggs or cheese or sausage, I forget about the details of that particular biscuit and start thinking of fast food breakfast sandwiches. It seems hardly fair, so I’ll have to go back someday and try the Boone. Or the biscuit of the day, which on Sunday was dill and cheddar. Or the Pablo’s coffee.

Note: If you stop in at Rise and Shine before closing time at 2 and you’re craving pizza, you can get a slice or two from the pie Basil Docs left the day before. Or, you can wait until 4:30, when Basil Docs starts taking orders for whole pies.

On Sunday Todd and I visited the Genghis Khan exhibition at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in City Park. Unfortunately, photography was expressly forbidden in the exhibit. If I’d had a supercool stealthy Leica, or some such camera, I might have snuck some photos. But I didn’t, and nobody else was sneaking any, so I didn’t have any cover.

I was able to take pictures of other parts of the museum, however. Here is the first, and probably the plainest, of my photographs: a side gallery at the DMNS. It’s probably used for parties. My favorite part is the palm trees.

Looks like it will be a good weekend to be out and about. Unless, of course, you’re at home watching the X Games. Here’s a picture of one end of the Commons Park bridge over the South Platte River.

Do you like the extra saturation, or not?

Here’s a bit of news from 5280 magazine that I find disturbing. William Dean Singleton, chairman and publisher of the Denver Post, will be making more than $1 million after the restructuring of Affiliated Media of Denver, which owns the Post and more than 50 other newspapers. Apparently, the restructuring was done in such a way as to give Bank of America an 88% share in Affiliated Media. That doesn’t give me confidence in the news. What do you think?

Here’s the 5280 blog post.

Also this weekend: my husband is showing Birthday Girl, the test shoot for his film Kung Fu Sushi Chefs, at the Bug Theater at 37th and Navajo. Here is the trailer on YouTube.

The Denver Jewish Film Festival has a launch party February 2. The festival opens February 11.

It’s a cold, gray day in Denver, and I’m feeling in need of comfort as I write this.

Luckily, there is a shop in Denver called Sanctuary, on Platte Street near 16th Street. It’s next door to Salvagetti Bike Workshop and half a block down Platte from Colt and Gray.

Sanctuary is the jumping-off point for Wade Richards’s interior design business. One thing he likes to do is to take old furniture and make it lovely and new again. When I visited Sanctuary last Sunday, I saw, kittycorner to the greeting cards, half a wall of fabric swatches and a table holding design books.

I couldn’t help but notice this chair, reupholstered with Argentinian cowhides that have been stenciled to look like wild animal skins. It sits in front of a display of framed sayings and another of barware. To the right, on the shelves on the wall, you’ll find some R&Y Augousti accessories and a small card that reads: “It is a privilege for us to carry this unique French line of handmade accessories.”

Everything about the store, including the clerk, was gracious like that.

(Though I’m not sure I approve entirely of R&Y Augousti, since they use materials like python and stingray skin and exotic shells. I would need to learn more about where they get their materials. Also, their website requested my address before it would allow me to look at their collections. I guess the website wasn’t kidding when it called the husband-and-wife team “self-confessed control freaks.”)

Sanctuary also carries Zents body care products, made in Denver of natural ingredients and, apparently, beloved of celebrities.

It was the little touches that I liked most about Sanctuary: the frogs everywhere, black glass skull candleholders by Two’s Company, these candelabra, wire bowls, fair trade scarves in bright patterns, Vita Moda Italian purses, and Table Topics games, which pose questions to start conversations to relieve that awkward silence at your very first dinner party. And this piggy bank.

My favorite item was the book 365 Ways to Save the Earth by Philippe Bourseiller, an outsize coffee table book with stunning photographs. At $30, it’s cheaper than most of the items at the store, but if you check the website, you’ll notice tabs for “under $30” and “under $70.”

Sanctuary reminded me of Bouquets on 15th Street in LoDo, but I think I am more likely to buy something at Sanctuary. Not because one store is better than the other; it’s just a matter of personal taste.

In yesterday’s post about Little Raven Vineyards, I mentioned Skyler Weekes was staffing the store last Sunday. In addition to working as a sommelier at Little Raven, Skyler has his own business selling wine barrels to be used as furniture or for aging beer, wine, or spirits.

The website for Rocky Mountain Barrel has a different email address than the card he gave me. So if you try to reach the company, I suggest trying sweekes at rockymountainbarrelcompany or skyweekes at gmail.

On Sunday I set out to visit 2 wine stores in the Central Platte Valley: Little Raven Vineyards, on the river side of the Millennium Bridge, and Corks, on Platte at 16th Street.

One thing they had in common: I didn’t recognize most of the wines at either store. It’s amazing how many wineries there are. Learning wine is like exploring the universe—it’s always expanding around you.

The main difference: Just about everything else.

Little Raven Vineyards (LRV), which is, according to Glenn Ehrlich of Corks, the second wine store in that location, is an elegant place. The wines are arranged by country (except for the North American and Colorado wines), and when you walk in this display of discounted bottles greets you.

LRV’s motto is “A Collection of Undiscovered Wines,” which the owner collects from vineyards around the world. I wrote down quite the list, which I’ve shortened here for you: Double Dog Dare, Mirth, Cupcake (I liked the citrusy chardonnay), Queen of Hearts, Fire Station Red, Sultry, Sinister Hand, Spellbound, Patriarca Chianti Classico, Out Riesling, and the one that appealed most to me because of the label and the blend: the Offering, with 49% grenache, 37% syrah, 13% mourvedre, and 1% viognier.

And those were mostly North American wines plus one Italian. Little Raven has more North American, French, and Italian wines than anything else. I found one Torrontés, Elsa Bianchi from Argentina, which I bought; the store was mostly out of Chilean wines.

Skyler Weekes presided over the store while I was there; as I walked around, I could hear the fan as well as jazz playing softly. The owner is Peter K (What is this, a nineteenth-century novel?).

The atmosphere at Corks, which opened 10 years ago before Platte Street was a destination, was altogether different. I crossed the threshold and nearly ran into a display of sparkling wines, including a Prosecco, Toad Hollow Risqué, and Barefoot Bubbly. I noticed Patron coffee liqueur, which I never knew existed, Cachaça 51, and Foxglove wines. The store carries several of the latter, although its policy is to sell only 1 or 2 wines from smaller vineyards, priced at $15 or under.

(Corks resembles Little Raven in its focus on less well known vineyards. Glenn also pointed out that larger liquor stores can buy the better known brands in quantity and sell them for less than what Corks would pay its distributor.)

Wines aren’t arranged on racks; instead, they’re clustered in crates under signs such as “Crisp—light-bodied” and “Voluptuous—full-bodied.” Unlike Little Raven, where you could walk quickly to a particular wine if you wanted, Corks arranges its wines so that you have to step carefully and, in the process, stop to read the tasting notes provided for every wine.

As I was taking notes on the wineries (Corks carries the Mirth label, as well as Crios wines, a South American vineyard owned by Susan Balbo), I noted Snoqualmie and Geode chardonnays, a No Time Viura-Chardonnay blend, and Bitch wines with a pink label.

Glenn asked me what I was doing, and when I told him about this blog, he mentioned that once a man from a competing store had visited Corks to write down wines his store should be carrying. Glenn thought that was a bit cheeky. We had a long discussion about Colorado liquor laws; I looked them up online and found this under Definitions in the Liquor Code:

(31) “Retail liquor store” means an establishment engaged only in the sale of malt, vinous, and spirituous liquors and soft drinks and mixers, all in sealed containers for consumption off the premises; tobaccos, tobacco products, smokers’ supplies, and nonfood items related to the consumption of such beverages; and liquor-filled candy and food items approved by the state licensing authority, which are prepackaged, labeled, and directly related to the consumption of such beverages and are sold solely for the purpose of cocktail garnish in containers up to sixteen ounces. Nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize the sale of food items that could constitute a snack, a meal, or portion of a meal.

Note that restriction at the end? Liquor stores are not allowed to sell food unless it can be used as part of a drink.

Why is that important? Because grocery stores want to sell regular beer and wine. Ever since the Colorado blue laws were repealed, they claim they’ve been losing money on alcohol sales.

Not so, counters Glenn. It’s true that grocery store liquor sales are down, but all sales are down in this economy. And he said most liquor store owners didn’t want to open on Sunday in the first place.

If McFayden and Veiga of the Colorado state legislature manage to get their bill passed in the current session, grocery stores will be allowed to sell liquor, but liquor stores will not be able to sell food. Glenn says if that law passes, Colorado liquor stores won’t be able to compete.

When I was in Louisiana for Todd’s surgery to correct superior canal dehiscence syndrome, I bought wine at Rouse’s grocery store. I don’t recall seeing a lot of liquor stores on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain (except for daiquiri drive-throughs), but I didn’t really pay attention. It was convenient to buy a bottle of wine with groceries, I have to admit, but there wasn’t anyone there to discuss wines with me. That is more important to me than convenience.

Colorado, unlike Louisiana, has set up its liquor laws in a way that favors smaller stores, and in this economy, I would like to see those stores stay in business. They return a larger percentage of their revenues to the community than do grocery store chains, which would be the main beneficiary of the proposed changes in liquor laws.

On my way to Sanctuary on Sunday, I stopped in at Paris on the Platte for lunch and decided to try something new: cambric, or Earl Gray tea with steamed milk and cinnamon on top.

I was a little startled when this pitcher appeared, but the waitress assured me it was the smallest size (16 ounces). I drank all 3 or 4 cups, loving the taste of tea plus steamed milk plus cinnamon, even though I knew the entire time that I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep that night. Why is it that tea keeps me up but coffee doesn’t?

For lunch I ordered Zorba the Greek, which was better than the house salad I had on my last visit. To be honest, the two salads are built on the same foundation of romaine lettuce; in this case, cucumbers, feta, olives, red onions and a balsamic vinaigrette made it “Greek.” The salad wasn’t gasping for air under gobs of feta, and the dressing was just a little sweet.

I find lately that I like eating olives a lot more than I did in the past. Must be the change of life.

There was a suspicious incident at the end, when the bill came with a charge for a small pitcher. The waitress corrected the amount, and I paid.

Now I’m curious to see what the small pitcher looks like. It would probably keep me up for a week.

Coming around the corner from Colt & Gray on Sunday, I was stopped by this sign.

I was so busy taking a picture, I didn’t think to feed the meter. I hope to do better next time, and if any of you see one of these meters, I hope you’ll completely outclass me.

NOTE: Wen Chocolates’s retail location on Platte closed on February 14, 2010. Check out the website for more information.

I was jonesing for Wen Chocolates until Sunday. I went by on January 11, and the store was closed for a long vacation that chef William Poole later explained was no vacation at all because he was rushing from one place to another attending tastings and such.

I think all the employees of Wen deserve a long vacation/trip/whatever. But then I went to the website, and it was down. I started to panic. I started to think I was a jinx. I told myself Wen couldn’t fail because the entire retail outlet is only as big as my kitchen (read: affordable rent) and people are always going in and buying sweets.

So I was relieved during my visit to Denver’s Savory Spice Shop in the South Platte River Valley neighborhood on Sunday to find Wen doing a brisk business. The website is still down as I write this post, for a redesign, and Poole has changed his approach a little bit.

Instead of offering a large selection of truffles, he’s downsized to 8 bestsellers plus 4 others per month plus 1 truffle of the month. (I can’t remember why the 4 additional truffles were selected.)

For example, when I asked about the Milan (on the left), which is a coffee-and-chicory truffle, he said it didn’t do well. I had thought coffee truffles always sold, but what do I know? That one, and others like it, will be coming back sporadically, if at all.

Poole and I also discussed his efforts to make the store eco-friendly. When I first visited Wen in the fall of 2008, employees put the truffles in a plastic bag and then in a cute pink bag with polka dots. (I still have 1 or 2 of those.) I believe there was also a bow involved.

Poole has found plastic bags made of cellulose, which are more expensive than the old ones, but he said he’s willing to eat the cost. He’s not putting shiny stickers on boxes anymore because they don’t decompose, and he’s doing his best to find boxes made of recycled materials. (There are plenty of boxes made from recycled or compostable materials in the world today, but they don’t always come in candy-friendly shapes and sizes.)

I walked out with 2 truffles I bought (Pagan Bunny and Rue Royale), plus another Pagan Bunny and a caramel he gave me for free. To make the Pagan Bunny, on the left, Poole poured chocolate into an antique mold imprinted with a bunny.

I bought the Rue Royale because it involved absinthe, rye whiskey, lemon, and bitters—all that sounded different and cool. I bought the “bunny” because of the name, and butter rum caramel needs no explanation.

The picture, unfortunately, doesn’t do them justice. I would have had better luck photographing them separately outside, but instead I took the picture inside Paris on the Platte, using a flash.

The Rue Royale tasted delicately of absinthe and lemon more than anything else. Absinthe is an anise-flavored spirit that at one time was banned for its supposedly addictive qualities, and I tasted more in the last bite. The Pagan Bunny, according to Poole, contains chocolate from 3 continents and 7 plantations, and he implied it would rock my chocolate world.

I’m not sure I agree, but it did taste dark and earthy, especially after the other candies and an Italian soda.

It would be interesting someday to do a tasting that involved eating 1 food (say, basil) and then tasting a chocolate. And then eating something else salty, or sweet, and tasting the same chocolate. The flavors would fight each other, or blend, or build. And perhaps one of the foods would bring out a flavor in the chocolate that I hadn’t noticed before.

I’ve walked by Colt & Gray many times. I did so on Sunday, looked to my left, and saw a cadre of servers wearing black and white. The front page of the restaurant’s website indicates happy hour begins at 4:30 on Sunday, but things didn’t look promising. (And the happy hour page has happy hour on Monday through Thursday only. A little more consistency, please.)

According to one conversation I overheard, Colt & Gray has the best burgers in Denver. Not to mention pig’s feet. And now I notice they have a twist on the “Vesper” cocktail—and here I am watching Casino Royale: The Remake—and the Riviera is just one of their original cocktails.

Perhaps I should assemble a group, so I won’t feel so intimidated by gangs of servers.

Here is what I saw when I looked to my right.

***

The Colorado Indian Market and Southwest Showcase is happening this weekend at the Merchandise Mart.

Savory Spice Shop in Denver’s South Platte River Valley neighborhood is the kind of place where I could spend hours and lots of money, if I allowed myself. It’s the kind of place that tells me, Yes, Beth, you can be a great cook. You can arrange dinner parties for 10 people and make the main course for the first time that night, and it will be perfect. And to do so, you need to buy this salt,

and these two (comparison and contrast-ion are necessary to achieve perfection)

and some of these chiles.

And you might want to read all these books first (except the one on Colorado place-names). And after that, try the salad dressing mixes and the stocks and the lobster mushrooms and the curries and the BBQ powders. And the “Italian herbs” containing French thyme, Greek oregano, and California basil. (I got a kick out of that.)

What usually happens in stores like these is that I buy far too many herbs and spices (this picture was taken from the cash register), and they sit in my spice drawer and lose flavor. For example, the main reason I went to the Savory Spice Store in the first place was that I checked the date on my dried onions, and it was 2006. The date on the mustard was 1991.

On Sunday, however, I restrained myself for once. I bought the “Toasted Onion, Sliced,” because the clerk said it would add brightness to chicken stock (and I actually have a chicken in my fridge waiting to be cooked in the crock-pot and then turned into stock), and the Summer Savory (also called “Bohnenkraut, or the “bean herb”) because I have never used it before.

Check out the recipes on the Savory Spice Shop website. The sweet potato bisque sounds decadent.

Speaking of decadent, one of the best things about this store is the fact it wraps around the back of Wen Chocolates, which you peek into through that window.

In this picture you can see Wen’s taupe awnings just next door. Of course, I couldn’t resist Wen, but more about that on Thursday.

On Sunday, it was in the fifties, warm enough to stroll without a coat. Or sit by the river, as these girls did.

For those of you unfamiliar with Denver, Cherry Creek is on the left, and the South Platte River is on the right.

I love details. I photograph signs, shadows, all the little things. If I ever end up doing landscape photography, I’ll be shocked.

Last Saturday I found beauty in 2 trees, 1 in Lower Highlands and 1 in South Platte.

Across the street from the Smithson Clinic, on Vallejo between 28th and 29th Avenues, I turned to see this gnarly old cottonwood. You don’t see too many of these big cottonwoods in cities anymore. Their spreading roots wreak havoc on plumbing systems and crack driveways and patios. Their branches are weak and often break in storms.Nevertheless I love them and hope more of them grow in the Denver Metro area. Last year Boulder cut down the huge cottonwoods at 75th and Arapahoe so as to add a lane. It would have taken at least 2 people to circle one of those cottonwood trunks; their branches extended out over Arapahoe. I still get mad when I drive by that intersection.

But this post was supposed to be about trees making me happy. Let me try again.

At the end of last Saturday’s walkabout, I took 29th Avenue to 16th Street to the bridge over I-25 that ends at this example of Denver public art.I wrote about it last fall; that post begins and ends with a picture of the bridge. In the courtyard surrounding National Velvet, someone pasted a beautifully detailed paper tree. If you zoom in close enough on the left side of the tree’s canopy, you can almost read the signature: Barney, perhaps.Last Saturday, I visited the tree again. It’s had a difficult winter.There’s more snow now than tree.

Despite spending so much time yesterday on the educational complex along 29th, I’m still not done. I returned to Zuni and walked past the Residence Inn Marriott to Speer. (It’s actually a three-street intersection, with 29th, 27th, and Speer meeting on a hill from which you can view downtown Denver. Speer heads toward downtown, and Zuni cuts across from left to right.) There are very similar convenience stores (1 a Conoco, 1 a Philips 66) on either side of Speer, as well as a Hampton Inn and Suites and a Budget Host Inn on the north side. Although I regularly drive through this intersection, I never really paid attention to the hotels before. Moving right across downtown (more or less south) and closing in, we see the exit for I-25.And moving even farther right, we find the tower at Elitch Gardens and the Pepsi Center (“the can”).I followed Zuni south to 26th Avenue and turned west, passing more hotels (Ramada Inn, Knights Inn), the Diamond Hill Office Complex, Denver Elks Lodge 17, and La Loma Mexican Restaurant. Then, at 26th Avenue and Eliot, I came to this.(I really must stop photographing from this angle. Notice the satellite dish in the top left-hand corner? Wouldn’t be there if I’d shot it straight on or paid attention to my corners.) As far as I can tell, this display is part of the Fred N. Thomas Career Education Center, also known as CEC Middle College of Denver. The application for the 2010-2011 Middle College High School Program for Full-Time Students spells it out.

How do the CEC/North Middle Colleges work? Enrollment in CEC/North Middle College of Denver creates a smooth transition from high school to college. Freshmen and sophomores spend half a day in academics and half a day in career class. As juniors and seniors, students take their academic classes on the CCD campus. If they qualify, they can take up to four college classes per year, allowing them the opportunity to earn up to a year’s worth of college credit toward their college degree by the end of senior year.

Sounds like a much, much better version of the Vo-Tech stuff we had in high school in the 1970s. In fact, the CEC was founded in 1976 and has been educating students ever since.

Hanging a right at Federal, I noticed Denver Fire Station 12 on the corner. I turned right again at 29th Avenue and was rewarded with a honk. Some man was waving at me, though I’m certain I’ve never seen him before. Going east, I passed José Valdez one more time and Three Tomatoes on my right. Three Tomatoes used to cater restaurants at the Botanic Gardens. I interviewed Three Tomatoes as a possible caterer for my wedding and was impressed, though I finally chose Spice of Life in Boulder.

As I stopped at the corner of 29th Avenue and Zuni to take a picture of a Coke sign, a dark-haired man in a truck shouted, “Take a picture of this ugly mug!”

And that, my friends, was the walkabout. I hope you enjoyed it.

Yesterday I left you bewildered between Wyandot and Zuni on 29th Avenue, pondering the pineapple decorations at Joie de Vivre in Denver’s Lower Highlands neighborhood. Let’s continue on.

I cut around the corner at Zuni and realized the area looked familiar. Two years ago I participated in a walking tour of the Highlands neighborhood with Phil Goodstein, a local historian and author. On my left between 29th Avenue and Dunkeld stood Emerson Street School, which I assumed was an elementary school. On my right, Ashland Recreation Center. Remember that crazy intersection I talked about yesterday, where 15th meets 29th and there may or may not be a vortex? Well, it’s just 4 or 5 blocks from a rec center.

According to the Denver Recreation Center Task Force report of April 2009, Ashland is designated as a neighborhood center and also as a local center (1 step up) because of its indoor pool. In the winter it offers swimming classes, basketball, volleyball, football, and oil painting, among other things.

Ashland is not open on Sundays (I wonder if that’s a budget-cutting measure?), so I was left to photograph the entrance, which impressed me. Here is the right-hand building of the rec center complex.

Obviously, swimming is important to the people who designed this entrance. I moved the camera to my left to get the main entranceand kept going to find the male swimmer backlit against the afternoon sky.And now I’ve come full circle, back to her.I crossed West Dunkeld Place to inspect this mural painted on the fence that bordered the elementary school. I saturated the colors a bit, but what you see is pretty true to the section closest to Zuni.

Here’s another section of the mural. I’m doing a liquid diet today, so Loncheria La Mexicana (in the center-bottom) sounds pretty good.

I walked around to 29th Avenue and discovered the school is called José Valdez Elementary School. As of this year, it’s an early childhood education (ECE) 7 school, teaching children from preschoolers (Montessori, ages 3 to 5) to seventh graders. According to the Principal’s Message on the website, however, in 2010-2011, Jose Valdez will become an ECE5 school until it figures out how to better serve middle school students. Its main goal is to graduate students who are fluent in English and Spanish and comfortable in a multicultural setting. Here’s a final section of the mural.

Emerson Street School nearby is very small, with about 40 students and 10 teachers; it educates students who have been expelled or are on parole.

North High School is located northwest of José Valdez. Does it strike anyone else as funny that North High School (located at 29th and Speer) is west of West High School (located on Speer between 9th and 11th)?