July Wrap-up

July was packed with activity - July 4th weekend activities, happy hours, bike events, hiking, etc. However, I did not cover everything in previous posts and now that it’s August, it’s about time.

Notably missing is the Moonlight Classic and my participation with team Hell on Wheelz .  The Moonlight Classic is a benefit bike ride that starts at 10:30 pm, has you ride 10 miles around Denver, and ends with a big party at the state capitol afterwards.  The Hell on Wheelz team was well-organized and pubcrawling-centric.  Good fun but it was late for me with the pre-party at El Diablo, the late start for the ride and leaving our second pub at 11:30 with 8 miles and two more pubs to go.  I left early but had a fun time riding with the team of devils with blinking red horns.

This is a photo Jessica took while we were waiting to start riding:

This is Jessica at El Diablo, that devilish girl:

I hiked to Lake Isabelle near Nederland – this is the lake:

I hiked in Chacos (sandals) and was surprised to encounter so much snow!

I also did some hiking in Boulder with my friend and colleague Pat.  Where we parked was spied on by a little white dog that stuck its head through a hole in the fence.

We hiked to Royal Arch, which is this:

It was a steep climb to the point that the trail had stairs (made of natural stone not concrete stairs).  This is Patrick at the top.

This is one of many chipmunks that was not afraid of people:

In my walking life I tend to take alleys for some reason and I was treated to the sight of a raccoon mom and two of her babies this month.  This is the mom:

These are the babies:

Other July activities are covered in previous posts but I wanted to share these too.  This is G from the Blah Life reporting – over and out.

Highlands Saturday

Because there was a film festival to attend and a new restaurant to try, the bulk of Saturday was spent in the Highlands neighborhood of Denver. 

I attended two separate film sessions at the Festivus Film Festival.  Both were at the Oriental Theater, which is a cool, old theater that I had never been inside. 

Session 1: 2:00 pm “Doc Double” – two documentaries back to back.  These were supposed to be inspiring documentaries about the triumph of the human spirit and so on.  The first one was about surfing and helping kids on Bali surf and get money for school.  It was mostly surfing.  If you’re not a surfer and/or don’t know anything about surfing, all the surfing shots look the same.  It was chilly in the theater so I wrapped myself in the tee shirt I won and nodded off.

The second documentary was the draw for this session – “Conquest of High Passes.”  Disabled cyclist traveling through the Himalayas and persevering.  It turned out to be a little dour.  The whole thing felt like rainy day wrapped in a wet blanket.  I blame this on the cyclist on which the film focused.  He was alternately talking about what an inspiration he was and talking about how horrible everything was. 

The next session wasn’t until 6:00 pm, meaning there was time to check out the area.  Lots of house-shops (i.e. little local shops in converted houses), art galleries, and coffee shops.  In one gallery/framing shop (metro frame works) there were to shop dogs – Greyhounds! 

They also had some art by artist Chris Vance that appealed to me.  This is just one example:

Since the break between sessions was so long, there was time to shoot over to the 32nd/Lowell area for a stroll.  More cute shops.  I love this octopus mural.

Dinner was at Hops & Pie (specializing in craft brew and artisan pizza).   The pizza was pleasantly tasty but the beer on tap was really special.  Here’s a bit of the draft beer menu:

I had the Oaked Arrogant Bastard (you don’t get that on tap too often!):

After dinner it was back to the film festival for Session 2: Laugh Track Short Films.  These were much more satisfying than session one’s documentaries.   Many of them were witty and at least half had me actually laughing out loud!  “Chump and Clump” was my favorite – two animated dudes and their adventures at a bus stop!

Afterwards was the last stop of the evening – Forest Room 5 – for a final beer.  This is somewhere I don’t get to very often because it’s in the Highlands but it’s an eclectic place that has various sized logs for bar stools and old farming and mining films playing silently behind the bar.  It is always pretty crowded. 

That was my Saturday! 

Event Anxiety Over

In my last post, I was preparing for a black tie event, the Downtown Denver Awards, which I was attending without Sandy. It happened last night and it went well! 

My final touch was to get my hair “done,” which means that I paid someone to give my an up-do.  My hair isn’t very long, so this up-do would have been a near impossibility for me and my “regular” hair is not exactly what I call polished.  I got it done at Star Salon here in Denver and they did an awesome job.  Winds were gusting up to 25 mph in Denver but my hair didn’t budge and looked fabulous. 

All of my separately purchased items (dress, shoes, wrap, necklace, etc.) came together nicely, if I do say so myself.  I honestly don’t think I’ve ever been so dressed up and hopefully I can get a lot of mileage out of these newly acquired items! So, if you see meet at a dressy event in the next few years, I’ll probably have on a similar outfit as the one below.

Here is a close up of my nose (I think it takes up 1/3 of the photo!).

The event itself was less anxiety-filled than I imagined.  I saw both the current and past Colorado Governor as well as Denver’s Mayor (maybe the next Governor?).  I actually knew some people there and spoke with them and met some new people and managed to not spit too much while I spoke.  That’s that really. Success!