Spruce Mountain

Posted on February 5, 2017 by Roger

I took my Sunday-afternoon hike at Spruce Mountain Open Space, north of Palmer Lake. It was a stunning day, near 60° and sunny, and there were quite a few people about. This is my favorite hiking spot so far. The views in every direction were amazing. I’m still not used to living in the West, so I still take photos of every butte and cliff and vista.

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The trail was snow covered on the north side of the mountain. This presented no problem going up, but I almost lost it twice on the way back down.

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The view from the east end of the mountain, with the parking lot/trailhead on the left and Pike Peak in the right distance. The elevation gain was 388 feet. The string of hills in the distance make up the Palmer Divide, which separates the watersheds of the Missouri and Arkansas Rivers. I’m pretty sure one of them in the distance is Lincoln Mountain, where I hiked last Sunday.

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Trains go back and forth beneath the mountain on a regular basis.

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The top of the mountain was covered in pine woods with rock outcropping throughout and around the edge.

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A flock of Pygmy Nuthatches kept me company for a while.

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There was a large outcropping on the west end, giving great views south, west and north.

Looking south, the long, low ridge is Ben Lomand Mountain, with Palmer Lake on the right. Behind that is Mount Herman, with Pikes Peak in the distance.

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Looking north toward the Front Range and Denver.

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The tallest peak in that photo is Mount Evans. Here’s a close-up.

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Of all the hikes I’ve taken so far east of the Ramparts, this is definitely my favorite. Even with the crowds, I was able to find a rock outcropping on the south side where I sat and relaxed for a half hour.

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Casa Bonita

Posted on February 4, 2017 by Roger

What would you get if you crossed Taco Bell, Rain Forest Cafe, and Disneyland? We went to Casa Bonita to find out. It’s in an older neighborhood west of downtown Denver.

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We filed in through a long series of lanes like those that lead to the rides at amusement parks. We were disappointed right at the very start when we found out there would be no indoor cliff diving this evening.

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A young woman at a turnstile took our order. And then we filed through several more series of lanes until we ended up in a little room where we waited for our food to get shoved out through little holes in the walls. The plates were too hot to touch.

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We made our way through yet another maze to the hostess’ desk.

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She led us to a table near where the waterfall and cliff divers would be if there had been any. My wife had a nacho salad and I had burritos. The food wasn’t terrible, which was much better than we expected. This was the view from our table.

Chiquita, the world’s least convincing gorilla (who didn’t weigh anywhere near 500 lbs) was led by our table on a chain. It wasn’t long after this that he escaped somehow and made a mad dash around the restaurant.

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That’s all the excitement that took place near where we sat, so when I finished eating, I went in search of more. I discovered a group of kids breaking a pinata and another group watching a puppet show. And I discovered Black Bart’s Hideout (although I feel that he could hide much more successfully if he took down the signs).

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I was too frightened to enter on my own, so when my wife finished eating, we returned.

We crept through a narrow, low, winding corridor that led past a pirate skeleton, a gorilla in a cage, and various other odd creatures, including a giant snake.

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There was also a “buttomless” pit.

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We made a quick pass through the rest of the place, passing by a Billy Bass fish tank, a Batmobile, and a truckload of arcade games. What pirates, Billy Bass, the Batmobile, and a gorilla have to do with Mexico was never explained.

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It was all every bit as silly as it sounds, but the food filled us up and we didn’t get food poisoning. Buttom line, we can say we’ve been there. And we never have to go again. Unless we want to see the cliff divers.

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The Hermitage Antiquarian Bookshop

Posted on February 4, 2017 by Roger

One of the first things I did when I moved to Colorado was search the web for good used bookstores. That’s how I found this place in downtown Denver — even though my GPS pronounced it “here-ma-tahze.”

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It reminded us a lot of Bookman’s Alley, but smaller and not filled with antiques. The book selection was every bit as good, if not better.

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I could have spent a lot of money, but I only bought one book.

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Boulder

Posted on February 4, 2017 by Roger

We headed to downtown Boulder and strolled through Pearl Street Mall, a four block section of stores where no traffic is allowed.

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It was an experience. There were street musicians (some of which played like they’d just acquired their instrument within the hour). There were sculptures. There were stores that catered to every aspect of the 70’s hippie culture. We went in a couple. This one featured geodes and stone bowls and fake fossils.

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And worry stones. I thought about buying a worry stone, but I wasn’t sure if I’d be happy with the color I picked, and I didn’t know where I’d keep it, and I thought I might lose it, and I was concerned that it cost too much, and I wasn’t even sure it would work.

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We did buy a small stone bowl that looked like it was made from marble.

We ate lunch at Lindsay’s Boulder Deli. My BLT was very good.

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Among other strange sights, we saw a guy dressed up as a technicolor dog. He barked whenever someone put money in his bowl. (What do you do for a living, Dad?)

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The Boulder City Hall and a nearby theater were both funky in an art deco sort of way.

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We tried to drive up into the Flatiron Mountains west of town, but when we found out we’d have to pay and saw how crowded it was, we turned around and drove back down.

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Celestial Seasonings

Posted on February 4, 2017 by Roger

Our plan was to spend the morning hiking, but the wind was too strong to make that comfortable. So we went to plan B. We drove to Boulder and toured the Celestial Seasonings factory.

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We arrived a few minutes too late for the first tour, so we hung around for a half hour looking at tea pots and artwork and tasting tea samples. (My wife tasted samples. I don’t like tea. I’ve tried to acquire a taste for it, but it can’t be done.) The woman in the green T-shirt was our tour guide.

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As with all factory tours, it was basically a commercial. But if there’s one place where I don’t mind commercials, it’s on a factory tour. It started with a video that gave the history of the company. Two young guys in the 60’s started picking local herbs and selling them in burlap bags. They called them “herbal infusions,” since they didn’t contain any actual tea. Business didn’t go well, so they changed the meaning of the word “tea” to include any herbs you dunk in hot water. Once they began selling their stuff as “herbal tea,” things took off. Today, 80% of Celestial Seasonings teas don’t include any tea.

It was a Saturday, so the factory wasn’t going. We all got hair nets as we entered the production area. I thought it was kinda funny that I had to wear one. We weren’t allowed to take photos in the factory.

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The tour was mostly about smells. The peppermint room was particularly pungent. That “tea” has to be kept in a separate room or all their teas would be mint teas.

Our guide was informative, so even though the machines were off, we got a good idea of what goes on. The tour ended in the gift shop, of course. My wife bought several boxes of tea and a mug. I bought a stuffed prairie dog and walked around with it saying, “Allen! Allen! Al! Allen!” Which was fun.

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This is how the cashier in the gift shop put Allen in our bag.

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