Pete's Kitchen

Behold, one of my favorite places in the world, Pete's Kitchen! This is hands down the best diner in the universe, and it's open 24 hours. Pat and I are longtime customers. We love it and go there as often as we can -- unfortunately not often enough, since it's in Denver. In operation since the 1940's, Pete's is an institution! My favorite is the gyros sandwich (or the Kitchen's baked potato, depending on my mood), and Pat's a faithful fan of their gigantic breakfast burritos. Yum!

Winter in July?

Another rainy day! Actually it's downright chilly out there. According to the thermometer in my car, the temperature is only about 55F (or 13 Celsius) -- brrr! We do have wild temperature fluctuations here all the time, but I don't think I've ever had to turn on the heater in July before!

This photo was taken just a few minutes ago in front of my studio. I like how the raindrops are clinging to the leaves just so.

Watery rainbow

Here's yesterday's rainbow, captured just as I was driving away from my house. It looks a little smeary because I shot this through my windshield, and the windshield wipers were barely keeping up with the rain.

I always think it's kind of special when the sun shines during a rainstorm, don't you?

Happy 250th birthday Mozart!

Actually, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart celebrated his landmark birthday in January of 2006, but since I wasn't blogging then I'll blog it now ;o) This fabulous mural resides on the east side of the In-Sight Optical building on Pikes Peak Avenue, adjacent to Phantom Canyon Brewery. It was one of many works of art commissioned across the US in 2006 celebrating the great composer's 250th birthday. As you can see, some yahoo tried to graffiti a "thought bubble" by Mozart's mouth, but must not have gotten very far with his act of vandalism because the thought bubble is empty!

In the past couple of years the mural has become a very recognizable feature of our downtown. Photographers love it, even though it's tough getting a good angle on it because it faces a parking lot that's usually packed with cars. I have to admit I've used it as a backdrop for quite a few shoots! I think the reason I'm so attracted to it (other than the fact that I love Mozart) is that red is my favorite color. What's your favorite color?

Guest blogger Chris Mann

Since it's wedding season and I'm swamped, I asked some of my professional photographer friends to be my guest bloggers. I'll be showcasing one every Monday for the next month or two. I hope you enjoy this first image (positively breathtaking!) by the very talented Chris Mann of Tropical Imaging, who is lucky enough to live in an island paradise. In his words:

"This photo was taken at the end of a portrait session on Grace Bay beach, on the island of Providenciales in Turks & Caicos, in June 2008. If you haven't heard of the Turks & Caicos Islands before, they are a small island group at the far end of the Bahamas, and are a self-governing British Overseas Territory. It's a very small nation - total resident population about 36,000... but we get over 250,000 tourists a year!

"When this photo was taken, we had had a weather-front come through so there was quite a lot of cloud around and it was windy - not ideal weather for a portrait, but as so often happens here the clouds drifting away to the west made the sunset all the more spectacular. And the seagull flying by was a bonus!"

Thank you Chris for your beautiful contribution! It makes me want to jump on a plane and fly to Turks and Caicos right this minute!

Tamera

An urban skyscape

The weather today is gloomy and forboding, so I decided to post a photo that's gloomy and forboding. (Well at least I tried hard to make it look that way!) This is one of our few skyscrapers, the Holly Sugar building. It no longer houses Holly Sugar but everyone still calls it that anyway. I think it's about 11 or 12 stories. I mentioned in another post how we don't have tall buildings here because of the view, so it's kind of hard to make Colorado Springs look like a big metropolis in pictures. I did my best!

Take my picture, please!

It is definitely summertime in Colorado Springs! Rudbeckia are blooming everywhere you look. They really thrive in our climate, which is nice, because even though they're a "weed", they sure are nice to look at! One of the pleasures of summer for certain.

I found this cheerful specimen the other day on the west side. He seemed to be saying, "Take my picture, please!"

Loftier

If my memory serves me, this building on Tejon Street in the heart of downtown was once the Fashion Bar department store. I used to shop there all the time when I was in college and beyond, but sometime in the early- to mid-nineties it went the way of the dinosaur. Now it's "lofts", whatever that means (the mural is new too -- I have to admit I like it).

Our downtown seems to be suffering from an overabundance of "loft" living spaces, the latest trend in many cities. I don't know if I'd want to live in a loft on Tejon Street, which is pretty much end-to-end bars and restaurants these days. Living above that would be pretty loud.

There is still plenty of shopping on Tejon, but more and more stores are being replaced by bars (and so-called lofts, of course). The ratio used to be the exact opposite. I kind of miss the old days when there were more stores and fewer bars, and not a loft to be found.

Spencer Penrose

Here's the statue of Spencer Penrose that lives on the corner of Pikes Peak and Tejon downtown. Penrose was one our most prominent and influential early residents. Colorado Springs was originally founded as a resort for the wealthy, which explains why our city founder, General Palmer, and many other early Colorado Springs residents came from moneyed east coast families. Spencer Penrose is a good example of that. He was much like Rockefeller or Carnegie in that he made a fortune in industry (gold) and became quite a philanthropist. He built the famous Broadmoor Hotel, as well as the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and the Pikes Peak Highway, among many other notable deeds. The name Penrose is well known in these parts!

Even though he died in 1939, Spencer Penrose is still giving, thanks to his El Pomar Foundation. His philanthropy continues to enrich our entire region. Thanks Mr. Penrose!

I am an enterprising sort

According to this fortune cookie that I got the other night at Panda Express (Chinese fast food, for those of you who are not in the U.S.), I'm very enterprising and should take advantage of that fact. It's a good thing I'm self employed.

I never eat the cookie, I just read the fortune. What about you?

Stormy weather

Pat and I are both very nocturnal, and thus fans of the Midnight Errand Run. It is not uncommon to find us dealing with our recycling long after the rest of the world has gone to bed, for instance, or perhaps you'll find us grocery shopping or returning library books. Thank goodness for 24 hour grocery stores and the like, or we'd never get anything done.

So last night we made a midnight run to WalMart because I needed envelopes. We decided to make a drive of it, so we went to the WalMart way up north. Earlier in the evening my Denver friends had all updated their Facebook statuses about an epic, violent thunderstorm that had pounded the entire area. I didn't think it was headed our way, since Denver and Colorado Springs generally have distinctly different weather patterns. When we entered WalMart all was quiet, but when we tried to leave about 15 minutes later we found ourselves trapped by a deluge of biblical proportions! (See photo.) Pat made a mad dash for the car, about 20 yards away, and got utterly soaked for his efforts. He pulled the car up to the curb for me, and in the 15 feet from the building to the curb I also got thoroughly drenched. Driving home was intense: the roads were several inches deep with rushing water, and we couldn't see through the windshield because the rain was so heavy. It was crazy!

Once we got closer to home we were able to outrun the storm, but it caught up with us again as we pulled up in front of our house. We ended up getting soaked a second time as we ran from the car to the front porch. Oh well! The crazy, unpredictable weather is one of the fun things about living here I guess.

An outward expression of manliness?

Pat and I saw this truck at the Chapel Hills Mall last Saturday. Until my dying day I will never, ever understand why a person will take an already expensive vehicle (in this case, a Ford F250 Crew Cab short bed 4x4) and add, say, another $15-$20 thousand in "improvements" and customizations to it, with the end product being a comically bloated overstatement of testosterone. What are all those freaking fog lights for? Do you really need eight of them? This is Colorado, a high desert! We get fog approximately twice per decade! What's with the big bully bar on the grill? Something tells me this truck has never been anywhere near livestock! And do you really need 24" of clearance and extra heavy duty shocks? I'm sure this truck never, ever goes off roading -- it might get dirty!

My biggest question is, if you're going to spend that amount of do-re-mi on something as functional and handy as a pickup truck is supposed to be, why would you get a short bed? That pretty much takes the function right out of it. No, this truck is purely for show. I just don't understand why someone would feel the need to be so "in your face" about their masculinity. What exactly is lacking within? Will somebody please explain this to me?

Whatever! I suppose it's not unlike some women's desire to surgically enlarge their bustlines disproportionately.

Got Pride?

Pat and I went to the Colorado Springs Gay Pride Fest this afternoon. We missed the parade (too bad, because judging from my friends' pictures it looked like a lot of fun!) but we did make it to the tail end of the festival later in the day. Colorado Springs has a reputation of being filled with extremely conservative Christians, but the fact of the matter is that our metro area is just as diverse as any other large city. There is a large and thriving gay community here, and our city is not nearly as "right wing" as people like to think.

For the first time in years, the Pride Festival had vocal support from one of our city leaders, Vice Mayor Larry Small (our mayor, Lionel Rivera, continues to withhold his support as he has done every year since taking office). Vice Mayor Small said last week, "These are citizens of the community who are having an event, and they need to be appreciated like any other group. They pay taxes, own businesses, and volunteer their time for community organizations. I'm not going to treat people differently just because other people might like or dislike them. I wasn't elected to judge any of them." Yay for Vice Mayor Small!

There was a great turnout today. Let's hear it for acceptance and tolerance! Vive la difference!

Palmer Park

Right smack in the middle of Colorado Springs is a giant open space called Palmer Park, named after our city founder. Most of it is wild and rugged -- lots of great hiking and horseback trails, but in the more civilized areas there are playgrounds, a dog park and plenty of picnic areas.

Palmer Park has always been one of my favorite places. If you drive up to the highest point you'll find the Grand View Overlook, an area that has seen some great improvements in the past few years. They have recently added some nice benches, covered areas and paving, so it's a nice place to just hang out and spend a sunny afternoon. And as always, there is a spectacular 360 degree view of our city from up there. This photo was taken today from the Grand View Overlook, looking northwest. That cluster of large buildings you see is the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (UCCS), my alma mater.

Back to the Future?

Well well well, what have we here? A classic '80s automobile! It has never occurred to me that a vehicle dating from the 1980s could ever be considered a classic, but take a look at this perfect DeLorean and tell me it isn't worthy of such a title! Pat and I came across it about a month ago on Woodmen and Academy, waiting for the traffic signal. Fans of the film "Back to the Future" will appreciate the vanity plates.

Daily cup of joe

Today I had to drive all the way to Boulder for a photo shoot (it's about 90 miles one way, so I logged almost 200 miles round trip). I stopped in Denver on the way home to drop off some film at a pro lab that I sometimes use, then have dinner with a friend. By the time I finally made it home I was needing a cup of coffee! Thank goodness for Dutch Bros. Coffee, which has not one but two "drive thru" locations right near my house. I'm definitely a regular, and so is Pat!

Whoever invented drive thru coffee deserves a big fat kiss. I like Dutch Bros. because their baristas are always so cheerful. Here's tonight's barista, Bethany. Thanks for the great cup of joe, Bethany!

Chadbourn Community Church

On the south side of our most popular new park, America the Beautiful, is Chadbourn Community Church, recently added to the National Register of Historic Places. I first noticed this charming little mission style church (originally a grocery store) when Pat pointed it out to me about three years ago -- but it's been there since the 1870's.

Pat and I ran into a Colorado Springs old timer the other night who had a kind of stream-of-consciousness way of talking. His conversational topics wandered all over the place and he was a little hard to follow, but my ears perked up when he mentioned that the area just west of the railroad tracks, what we know as the Conejos District, was once called Martinez Town. I am a sucker for any kind of Colorado Springs history lesson, but unfortunately the conversation veered off into another direction immediately, so the topic was lost. I will have to find another old timer's brain to pick.

If I dig way, deep back in my memory (and by that I mean college), I recall my boyfriend Drew, who worked at the Red Cross, driving me through that small neighborhood and showing me how the poor of our city lived. I remember being shocked at the tiny, ramshackle houses and obvious poverty -- I had no idea at the time that their was any true poverty in Colorado Springs. It was very sobering. According to this article, it was the original Hispanic area of town, peopled with railroad workers and their families, most of whom came from Mexico to help build the railroad in the 1870s.

The tiny, ramshackle houses are now long gone; that area is now loosely known as the Arts District, and America the Beautiful Park takes up most of the real estate there. All that remains of Martinez Town is Chadbourn Community Church.

Some interesting articles about the Chadbourn Gospel Mission:

http://www.gazette.com/articles/church-41042-chadbourn-city.html http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4191/is_20020921/ai_n10008844/

COS Bike Pub Crawl!

Earlier this evening Pat and I were driving around looking for cool material for the blog, and we came across these guys downtown playing bicycle polo. Of course we had to stop and ask them about it! It turns out that they are part of a loosely organized group of cycling enthusiasts called COS Bike Pub Crawl (COS is short for Colorado Springs).

I've mentioned before on the blog how big a sport cycling is in our city. And of course, beer is a big sport in EVERY city. What a great way to combine two awesome pastimes! These guys meet every Thursday night and do a downtown pub crawl on wheels. I'll have to dig out my vintage Schwinn and join them one of these summer evenings.

A note from Mrs. Schulz

I was surprised to receive a package in the mail today from Jeannie Schulz, the widow of beloved Peanuts creator Charles Schulz. She had come across my July 7th blog post about her late husband, and wrote me a brief but enlightening letter. She also very kindly enclosed a copy of the Comics Journal (No. 290, May 2008), which features several very personal, in depth articles about Mr. Schulz and about the somewhat controversial biography that was published after his death. I say "controversial" because the book tended to characterize Schulz as a morose or even mildly depressive man (I have read this elsewhere as well); some of those close to him, especially his son Monte, took issue with that characterization. The May 2008 Comics Journal seeks to explore the true character of Charles Schulz, starting with an essay by Monte Schulz (I regret to say that I haven't got time to read this material extensively though I wish I could, but it's wedding season and I'm going a little nuts here -- I am trying to just skim the various articles for now).

Anyway, I'm sure that Mrs. Schulz wants to make sure that both sides of the coin are revealed. Having been married to him for many years, she must have known her husband's character quite well! When a person is famous, a certain amount of mythology evolves around them. There are many stories and anecdotes about Mr. Schulz that have been published over the years, so keeping the myths separate from the facts must be a full time job. Jeannie Schulz very graciously offered up some facts. I'll just transcribe some of her words here:

"Hi Tamera --

Jeannie Schulz, Sparky's widow here..... [Note: this is when my bottom jaw hit the floor.]

Interesting fallout from your blog -- i.e. people saying there should be a recognition of some sort.

I thought you might like this copy of Comics Journal -- it has an approximately 100 page back and forth which might change your assessment of 'morose character' -- [Note: I'm not really in a position to assess Mr. Schulz, having never known him; I was paraphrasing a couple of other sources. I now stand corrected!]

He was a WWII veteran -- I wouldn't say he 'saw combat' -- as you will see, some shots were fired. [Note: I am assuming she means I will find this information in the Comics Journal. I'll see if I can find that part.]

I've been a part of a correspondence w/Van Pelts -- never heard their children were Linus and Lucy. I think that could be corrected if you choose." [Note: this is a big part of the lore here in Colorado Springs -- interesting!]

The letter goes on to mention how generous it was of the Travnicek family to donate the wall from their house that had the Schulz illustrations on it. And she apologizes for her penmanship (which was quite legible, actually!).

I must say, I was absolutely gobsmacked to receive any kind of correspondence from the Schulz camp, least of all his widow! I want to thank Jeannie Schulz for taking the time to write and for the Comics Journal, which is proving to be an interesting read indeed! (Am just now making a dent in the piece written by Monte Schulz.) I also want to thank her for spelling my name correctly -- small detail, I know, but you wouldn't believe how many people get it wrong. Attention to something so personal is very gracious, I think.

I will add her letter and Comics Journal to my little box of treasures.

A long, short drive

I'm late with today's post! And I'm late because of traffic. Let me explain: today Pat and I had to drive to south Denver twice. First, to have dinner with friends and then pick something up from another friend who lives in Highlands Ranch, a suburb south of Denver; second, to return that thing to the same friend later on in the evening.

It used to be that if you wanted to drive to south Denver on a Sunday evening, it was a straight shot north up the interstate and 45 quick minutes in very light traffic. Not so much anymore. As we struggled simply to get clear of Colorado Springs, I finally aquiesced to the fact that it is no longer possible to get to Denver so quickly, even on a Sunday evening. The Colorado Springs metro area now has around 600,000 people when you include the smaller fringe towns and bedroom communities that surround our city. That makes for a lot of traffic. Denver hasn't gotten any farther away, but it sure feels like it!

So we were a little late for dinner, but made good time to our friend Orin's house afterward, to pick up a computer part. On the way home we got stuck in a construction project on Monument Hill, and it was such slow going that it took us nearly 45 minutes to drive four miles through the cone zone. The agony of a full bladder on top of that did not make me a very happy camper! And we still had to drive back to Orin's to return the thing later on! What we saw when we headed back northward to Orin's was the same cone zone as before, plus another one a few miles up the highway. This forced us to take an alternate, rural route on our way home from Orin's, because we did not want to get stuck in TWO endless traffic jams just a few miles apart.

Anyway, as a result I am late with my 7/12 post. This makes me crabby! Even though it's now the 13th, I'm backdating this post to 11:59pm on 7/12 for continuity's sake. I guess the bright side of all this is, as we crawled along trying to get home from our first Denver run, I managed to get quite a few photos of the rather spectacular sunset that was unfolding to our west.

Famous Colorado Springs residents: Helen Hunt Jackson

The author and American Indian advocate Helen Hunt Jackson was another famous resident of our city. I can't find much information as to how long she lived here, but I know she was in Colorado Springs around 1873 or 1874, seeking a cure for her tuberculosis (our dry, relatively mild climate made us the go-to place for TB sufferers in the early days of our city).

Helen Hunt Jackson suffered the loss of both her parents early in life, then her husband and both her sons as a young woman. She met her second husband in Colorado Springs while seeking the cure. During these years she had blossomed into a prolific writer, publishing popular novels until she became concerned about the plight of the Native Americans. Jackson became a well known activist for the cause (which makes her a hero if you ask me), and was even appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs, the first woman to hold that post. She died in 1885 of stomach cancer.

Helen Hunt Falls is one of our most popular attractions. It's an easy drive up into Cheyenne Cañon, and if we've had a snowy winter the falls are quite magnificent well into summer. I took this photo today, just before a rainstorm hit. I like the tourist waving from the bridge. I don't think she's waving at my camera, but who knows?

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming...

I'm still planning on blogging about a couple more famous Colorado Springs residents (see previous posts), but I don't have a photo to accompany my next subject yet. So for today here's a cool picture I took on July 1st in south Denver. My friend Charlotte and I had gone to an area called the DTC -- short for Denver Tech Center, an area basically crammed with large office buildings, about a million corporations large and small, all their workers, and lots of bars and restaurants -- to meet some fellow photographer friends and have some beers and conversation. I took this photo as we were leaving. It's the street number of the bar we were at, with the sunset reflected in the windowpane. If you squint your eyes a little, it kind of looks like numbers floating in the sky.

Famous Colorado Springs residents: "Elvira"

Surely you remember Elvira, Mistress of the Dark! Her real name is Cassandra Peterson, and she was born in Kansas but raised in Colorado Springs. She graduated from Palmer High School downtown -- and if you went to Palmer you'd know that, because her photo, just like the one above, is on the wall in the main entrance right next to all the other famous Palmer alumni.

In the 1980s Cassandra Peterson, as Elvira, hosted a late night horror show on TV called Movie Macabre. Basically her job was to introduce the night's film (always a B-movie), then periodically interrupt with some cheeky, droll or lascivious commentary, all the while outfitted in a tight black gothy dress with an outrageously plunging neckline, vampira makeup and a huge black wig. She was awesome! And so funny! I loved Elvira!

I did a little bit of research on her. It turns out she's led an amazing life, our Miss Peterson. Immediately after graduating from Palmer she hightailed it to Las Vegas, where she became the youngest showgirl in Vegas history. She won a small role in a James Bond film ("Diamonds are Forever"), playing a showgirl of course. She dated Elvis Presley, then posed as a stripper for the cover of Tom Waits' breakthrough album "Small Change" (I guess that's her in the background). Eventually she moved to Italy to sing in a rock band; there she met the legendary director Federico Fellini, who gave her a small part in his film "Roma". I'm telling you, you can't make this stuff up! What a life she's led! And all of this before she landed her Elvira schtick!

Well anyway, as Elvira she was extremely popular. Do you remember Elvira's ads for Coors beer? A chesty, campy Vampira type selling beer -- I loved it! She really kind of legitimized the Goth movement that was gaining traction around that time (and of which I was a participant). She was our campy goth cheerleader.

These days I guess the Elvira persona has been retired, but I'm still glad to claim her as one of our most famous residents. The above photo belongs to my good friend Dave, whose brother Mike used to work with Cassandra Peterson's niece here in town. It takes pride of place on his living room wall, but he was happy to take it down for me today so I could get a snap of him holding it. Thanks Dave!

Famous Colorado Springs residents: Rick "Goose" Gossage

Colorado Springs native and pro baseball hall of famer Rick "Goose" Gossage is a big local celebrity. He's very active in the local sporting community, and the city built a sports park/complex in his name over 10 years ago. The Gossage Sports Complex features a couple of baseball diamonds, several soccer fields, a skate park and some BMX trails. It's in use all year round -- not a day goes by when someone isn't making good use of that park!

When I worked at Shewmakers Camera Shop downtown many years ago, Mr. Gossage was a frequent customer. During that time he was playing for either the Yankees or the Rangers, and my co-worker Peter would always get a little starstruck when the Goose dropped in. As for me, I was just awe of his sheer size: 6'-3", about 250 pounds. Goose Gossage is a Great Big Dude. Last year he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and it was in all the news. When the local TV stations interviewed him as the announcement was made, he got really choked up. I thought it was pretty cool to see such a big, macho guy show his emotions like that.

Famous Colorado Springs residents: Charles Schulz

Many people don't know that the beloved creator of the Peanuts comic strip lived right here in Colorado Springs at the beginning of his long and illustrious career. Charles Schulz moved here with his young family in the early 1950's, and stayed a couple of years. He lived in a small house in the general vicinity of the Patty Jewett golf course and the Old North End, about four blocks dead east of my studio. Fair readers, I can't tell you how many hours of research and agony (and eventually, a few dollars) went into finding this house so I could surreptitiously snap a picture of it for the blog today! I am 99% certain that the above adorable bungalow is the former Charles Schulz residence. We'll leave the 1% of uncertainty to the wind.

In 1951 Mr. Schulz painted a wall in one of the bedrooms with Peanuts characters and other cute critters for his young daughter Meredith. The wall survived for a while, until some numbskull (name unknown) bought the house and painted over it! Can you believe that? By then, Mr. Schulz was very well known, and you would think the homeowners would want to preserve the wall -- but I guess not! Over the years, various people painted over the wall many times, until in 1979 the house was purchased by a family that realized what a treasure they had. After consulting with Mr. Schulz, they undertook the daunting task of uncovering his mural from several layers of paint. The process took two months! Years later, when Mr. Schulz became terminally ill with cancer, they literally removed the wall from their home and donated it to the Charles Schulz museum in Santa Rosa, California. Talk about generous! You can see a photo of the wall here: http://www.schulzmuseum.org/exhibits/permanent/nurserywall/nurserywall.html If you click on the image you can see it a little larger -- there's Snoopy, Charlie Brown and even Sally!

A few other factoids about Mr. Schulz and Peanuts that you might not have known:

• By some accounts Charles Schultz was of a rather morose character -- some would describe him as a "glass half empty" type. Maybe just a little like Charlie Brown.
• His first wife Joyce, on the other hand, was bossy and outgoing, much like a certain Lucy we are all familiar with!
• Speaking of Lucy -- his neighbors in Colorado Springs, the Van Pelts, had a couple of small children named Linus and Lucy.
• Mr. Schultz was a hockey fanatic and played almost every day.
• He never liked the name Peanuts -- it was foisted upon him by his first editor, and it stuck.
• He was a World War II veteran and did see combat.

I personally am proud that our city was once Mr. Schulz's home. There is not a single thing here commemorating him -- not a street name, a plaque, a statue, a park, nothing. I wonder why?

ETA: Please see my July 13th post for updated information about Mr. Schulz.

Famous Colorado Springs residents: Lon Chaney

The famous silent film actor Lon Chaney was a native of Colorado Springs. Born to deaf parents, his maternal grandparents founded the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind, just a few blocks west of my house (and only about a block west of Nikola Tesla's laboratory -- see yesterday's post).

Lon Chaney got his start on the stage, but the sensationalism surrounding a bitter divorce from his vaudevillian wife caused him to make the leap to the silver screen, where he eventually became known as one of Hollywood's most famous early character actors. He is best known for his groundbreaking roles in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (as Quasimodo) and The Phantom of the Opera (as the Phantom, of course). Nicknamed "the man of a thousand faces", Chaney's skill with makeup and characterization made him the "go to" guy for horror roles.

I remember watching The Phantom of the Opera as a kid and being scared to death of Lon Chaney! As an adolescent, I learned that he used paper clips or some such to make his nostrils look so grotesque. Funny! Here in Colorado Springs there is a small theater named after him. It's located in the City Auditorium downtown. I have only been to his namesake theater a couple of times, most memorably to view some silent films featuring, you guessed it, Mr. Lon Chaney.

Famous Colorado Springs residents: Nikola Tesla

I decided it would fun to devote a few blog posts to famous people who are from Colorado Springs or have lived here. I'll start with Mr. Nikola Tesla, the celebrated scientist, inventor and oddball. He lived in Colorado Springs from 1899 to 1900 -- admittedly a short lived residence here, but during that brief period of time he conducted some of his most important experiments.

His laboratory in Colorado Springs was located just a few blocks from where I live. I wish I had the actual address, but I know it's on Foote and Pikes Peak (or Foote and Kiowa, by other accounts), which is walking distance from here. How cool is that?!? Tesla famously blew out the city's power grid, which I'm sure wasn't very sophisticated at the time, while conducting one of his "mad scientist" experiments. I love it.

We used to have a small Tesla museum here, but it's long gone. We do, however, have a street named after him, which is a small tribute to such a great scientist.

To learn more about Nikola Tesla, here are some links:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla
• http://www.csindy.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A2034
• http://www.tesla-museum.org/ [ Click on "English" if you don't happen to speak Serbian! ;o) ]

And on a more personal note, HAPPY BIRTHDAY Planet Janet! Love you!

The end of the rainbow...

is somewhere in the vicinity of the Super Target parking lot, apparently. I took this yesterday during a quick shopping run.

Happy 4th, everyone!

Let's go to the fair!

Pat and I were on the east side of town running errands this evening, and on the way home we drove past this traveling fair on Platte Avenue at Powers. He said, "Wow, that would make a great picture!" So I pulled over and took out my trusty little point and shoot camera. I captured this image by turning off the engine to minimize vibration, and steadying the camera on the car for stability. I shot from the drivers seat.

I wish it had been just a little lighter out, and I wish that a "real" camera had been handy, but I think my little Canon Power Shot did a pretty decent job anyway. Maybe I'll go back on Sunday night and give it another try with an SLR and a tripod.

Florissant, Colorado

Florissant is a tiny mountain town about 45 minutes up the pass from Colorado Springs. Mostly it consists of a gas station, a bar, an old church, and an antique store. When a person says "I live in Florissant," it's more likely they mean somewhere in the countryside surrounding Florissant, not literally in the town of Florissant. The entire area is gorgeous and peaceful. What a nice place to live.

I am shooting a wedding on this land outside of Florissant the day after tomorrow. I went there today for a final consult with the bride and groom. Isn't it beautiful? As you can see from the picture, we had a rainstorm coming in. In the summer we get heavy monsoon-like rains almost every afternoon around 4:00pm, especially in the mountains. But don't worry, Saturday's wedding will be in the morning. None of us plan on getting wet!

Guest blogger Charlotte Geary

I asked my friend Charlotte to be my guest blogger today. She took this photo a couple of days ago at Blue Mesa Reservoir near Gunnison, Colorado. I'm assuming this is sunset, not sunrise, because like me Charlotte's not much of a morning person.

Absolutely beautiful photo, Charlotte! Thanks for being my guest blogger today!

Tamera