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Nothing too exciting, just some odd flora that I noticed the other day while on a senior portrait shoot. I've never noticed these trees with pods before. I wonder what it is.

Let the games begin!

Colorado Springs is an Olympic city, so it makes sense that we get a little excited around here when the games are on! Not only are we home to the Olympic Training Center (which I'm proud to say is in my neighborhood), we are also home to the United States Olympic Committee. As I'm sure you're aware, the London Games kicked off on Friday, and in Colorado Springs there was a huge street party to celebrate well into the night, culminating in lighting our own Olympic torch right in front of the USOC headquarters. There were about 15,000 people in attendance -- big party! I roamed around with Pat and took pictures of all the goings-on.

I love this lady's team spirit!

These Olympic gymnasts did a trampoline demo in the middle of Tejon Street. It was pretty spectacular.

Trampolining with snowboards!

Gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi lit the Olympic torch.

There was a gargantuan TV screen in the street in front of the USOC headquarters, showing the opening ceremonies in London. The crowd clapped and cheered wildly when Team USA finally marched across the screen.

A black squirrel in Colorado Springs

In all my years living here, I don't believe I've ever seen a black squirrel.  We spied this cute little guy the morning after THIS crazy storm, in front of Pat's brother's house. I happened to be well-armed with a camera so I snapped off a few shots.  He looks just like a regular garden-variety squirrel except for his dark coat.  I've seen pictures of other black squirrels, and they had cute tufted ears. Supposedly that species lives in Colorado too but I've never seen one around here.

I think this particular little critter is quite unique. May you live long and prosper, Mr. Black Squirrel!

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The tree-lined entrance to Patty Jewett Golf Course, captured on June 3rd.  Aaaaaaah, summer.

The earnest farmer

The farmer statue that stands before the heirloom vegetable garden within the demonstration garden in Monument Valley Park.  He looks very earnest and steadfast, don't you think?

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A pretty image taken near sundown on Friday evening at Prospect Lake.

Waterskiing on Prospect Lake

There's plenty of water recreation going on at Prospect Lake in the summertime, but usually it's fishing, boating or jetskiing. I've never seen anyone waterskiing on the lake before. This guy was quite the hot dog!

Colorado mourns

I know I already posted a picture for today, but I felt compelled to post again. Earlier this afternoon I was picking up a prescription at my neighborhood Walgreen's, and afterward, as I waited to turn left on Boulder Street, I saw with a pang that all the flags across the street at the Olympic Training Center were flying at half-mast.  It's hard to avoid the news, but if you haven't heard, a crazed gunman opened fire in a crowded movie theater in Aurora early yesterday morning, killing 12 people and injuring 58.  The youngest victim was six years old.  That's right, he killed a six year old.  It's absolutely horrible.  We Coloradoans are in shock and trying to process the enormity of this man's act.  Aurora is part of the Denver metro area, less than an hour north of Colorado Springs.  We are all hard hit by this.

As a human, what can you say?  It's unfathomable that things like this can happen, and yet they do.  We in Colorado deeply appreciate all the heart-felt thoughts and prayers that the world has been sending us during this dark time. Thank you for the comfort.

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Pat and I took a walk around Prospect Lake yesterday. We practically had the park to ourselves (a rare treat at this time of year) because they were setting up for a big triathlon that's happening today. This man was walking his dogs along the path that rings the lake. I captured him just as he passed one of the colorful banners decorating the triathlon route.

Silver Sparrow Beads

My friend Jenn and I came across this fabulous bead store, Silver Sparrow Beads, while shopping in Manitou Springs on Monday. It's a dangerous place! I think if you were into beading, you might just spend all day and all of your money there ;^) Thankfully I'm immune to bead stores, but knitting stores on the other hand... big trouble!

What's for lunch?

On Monday, my friend Jennifer and I spent the day dining and shopping in Manitou Springs, whose economy has suffered greatly in the fallout from the Waldo Canyon fire. We started our day with lunch at the wonderful Adams Mountain Cafe, which serves delicious, healthy cuisine with lots of great vegetarian options for herbivores like me. Here's a pretty shot of Jennifer's tea, above, and my scrumptious dal lentil soup, below. Yum!

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A whimsical piece of public art on a rare dreary day in Manitou Springs. My friend Jennifer drove from Denver to hang out with me on Monday and we decided to spend our dollars in Manitou, whose tourism-based economy has been hard hit by the Waldo Canyon fire.

Up close and personal

Yesterday I finally had an up close and personal look at the homes in the Mountain Shadows neighborhood that were destroyed by the Waldo Canyon fire. My friend Jenn, who lives in Denver but used to live here, drove to Colorado Springs to view the devastation with me. It was exceedingly grim, and it brought tears to my eyes. A very sobering experience. We saw many homes that were reduced to rubble and ashes. Many other homes were completely intact with their families moved back in, which was very strange-looking when juxtaposed against the empty burnt-out shells of their neighbors. I saw one house whose attached deck was completely charred, and yet the rest of the structure was unharmed (yay firefighters!).

As I understand it, the inferno that overtook this neighborhood was of a phenomenon and magnitude so rare, described as a "tornado of flames", that firefighters were helpless to fight it and were in fact forced to retreat for a time before taking to the streets and battling it one house at a time.  There is an excellent article about it HERE; please read it to get a real understanding of the heroics of these men and women that day.  What they were up against was unthinkable.

I took pictures of a few burned homes. The one in the photo above was on a corner lot, so I was able to walk around and get pictures of it from a few angles. Another one diagonally across the street from it was also completely destroyed, yet most of the other houses in that particular neighborhood were saved. As I was taking these pictures, a little girl was cheerfully bouncing on her pogo stick in the street right in front of a blackened wasteland while her parents watched her from their perfectly normal, intact home across the street. Boing, boing, boing. Surreal.

It's going to be a while before things are back to normal in Mountain Shadows.

A closer view.

Here it is from the corner.  Strange how the plants, trees and grass are just fine, but the house is gone.

Here's a frontal view from standing in the driveway.  The entire length of the gutter is lying in the foreground.  Just below and to the right of center, you can see the kitchen stove with the microwave sitting on top of it.  The microwave must have been attached to a cabinet above the stove, and when the cabinets and walls burned it fell directly down onto the stove.  I can see it happening in my mind's eye.  And look at the house only a few feet beyond this one. It's untouched.

The home diagonally across the street.  Steps leading to nowhere. The only thing left is the retaining wall and a bit of foundation. The foothills beyond it are completely blackened.

This house was on a different street. It's completely obliterated except for the swingset, which is untouched. I can't imagine evacuating and then coming home to this. The thought of it is heartbreaking.

Bud's Salvage

One last picture from our road trip. As we were leaving Bud's Salvage (see yesterday's post), I had to pull over and get a picture of their "sign". I think this is a great way to advertise a salvage yard.

Paul Bunyan, I presume

Who is this giant looming in the landscape? He's Paul Bunyan, of course! (For my non-U.S. readers: Paul Bunyan is an American folk hero -- you can read more about him HERE.) We found him at Bud's Salvage in tiny Aline, Oklahoma during our road trip last month. These 20 foot tall fiberglass figures were produced in the 1960s and '70s as advertising gimmicks and they're generally known as "Muffler Men"; variations include Paul Bunyan, "the noble savage" and "the happy halfwit". Whenever Pat and I go on a road trip, we consult www.roadsideamerica.com and see if there are any Muffler Men to be found on our route. Generally, if it's not too far out of our way, we'll adjust our trip accordingly. This is one of the best ones we've seen!

We arrived at Bud's Salvage only 10 minutes before their closing time. They kindly allowed us to run around back and take pictures of their Paul Bunyan. It was quite a hike, actually, and I was wearing some very adorable and yet very useless shoes, and the temperature was 108 boiling hot degrees. The sun was beating down on us mercilessly. It felt like we were on some kind of crazy endurance test, but it was worth it to get up close and personal to Mr. Bunyan and snap a few pictures of him! Afterward we ran back to the car, and the proprietor was patiently waiting at the gate for us. Thank you, sir!I must say, I think I sweated more in that 10 minutes than I have in my whole life all put together. Hats off to those of you who live in Oklahoma and can endure that kind of heat and humidity! I am, apparently, a wimp.

From Kansas to Oklahoma

In yesterday's post I showed you a few pictures from our road trip to Kansas. We had a serious decision to make while on our adventure, because on the day we left Colorado, in fact only a few hours after we drove away, the Waldo Canyon fire breached the ridge and our beloved Colorado Springs began to burn. On that day, almost 350 homes were lost (and sadly, two of them belonged to friends of mine). Thanks to our smart phones, Pat and I got the news in real time as our friends were posting horrifying updates to Facebook. We were faced with the dilemma of whether to continue our little trip or turn around and go back home. In fact, we were quite anguished and I blogged about it from Kansas -- you can read my post HERE. We decided to at least make it to Atchison, spend the night and see the Amelia Earhart Museum in the morning, then make a decision about whether to go home or not. After seeing the museum we had a long talk. Ultimately we decided to stay the course and continue onward to our next destination:   Tulsa, Oklahoma. There would have been no point in going home, and the air quality by all accounts was very bad in Colorado Springs. So to Oklahoma we went, and I'm glad we did. We had a great adventure.

The photo above was taken not far beyond the state line. We were amazed at how different the sunsets in Kansas and Oklahoma are from what we get in Colorado Springs. For one thing, we never get a perfect orb of a sun like this, and those blood red skies. I would describe this as quietly spectacular.

Below, a few more photos below from our brief trip to Oklahoma.

One of the reasons Pat chose Tulsa as a destination was that he was certain they must have good barbecue there.  He was right.  A lot of research and deliberation went into choosing just the right barbecue restaurant, and it came down to a little place called Elmer's.  I am a vegetarian, but I told Pat I'd have barbecue with him so I had some chicken (and it was delicious).  Above is Pat's meal of smoked barbecue ribs, baked beans, Texas toast and coleslaw.  He was in heaven!
 

After fortifying ourselves with delicious Elmer's barbecue, we went out in search of landmarks used in the film Rumble Fish, which was shot on location in Tulsa by Francis Ford Coppola in 1983.  This large arrow features prominently in the film.  It's pretty cool that we were able to find it.

This bar was featured in Rumble Fish as the pool hall where Rusty James and his friends hung out.  A few pivotal scenes took place here (not to mention that the bartender was played by Tom Waits!).

I shot this view of Tulsa's downtown without realizing that Francis Ford Coppola used almost exactly the same shot in his film.  When we got home from our trip we watched the film again, after not having seen it for well over two decades, and I almost fell off the couch when I saw the similarities.  I think he must have been standing only a little to the right of where I stood to take this picture.  You can see his shot in the trailer to the film.

Last but not least, Cain's Ballroom, where the Sex Pistols infamously played in 1978. Of course Pat and I are huge fans of the band -- when we were in London several years ago we tracked down a couple of venues where they used to regularly play. It's kind of fun that we were able to see one of the only seven places they played in the U.S.!

A trip to Kansas

I'm going to travel outside my usual blog universe and show you some pictures from a brief road trip Pat and I took last month to Kansas and Oklahoma. I have always been fascinated by Amelia Earhart. She's been my personal hero since I first heard about her as a young girl. What a great role model! Somewhere along the line I learned that she was from Atchison, Kansas, so I made a resolution to go to Amelia Earhart's birthplace one day. I finally got the chance to go last month, and it was a great experience! The photo above is her grandparents' beautiful Carpenter Gothic-style house overlooking the Missouri River, now the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum; Amelia was born in one of the upstairs bedrooms. A few more pictures from our adventures in Kansas below.

This is the bedroom where Amelia Earhart was born on July 24, 1897. She was named after her grandmother.

Amelia Earhart's flight jacket. I can't believe I got to see this! Pinch me!

The home of Beat writer William S. Burroughs in Lawrence, Kansas. He lived here from 1984 until his death in 1997. We made a special detour just to see it. You wouldn't think that the guy who wrote Naked Lunch would've lived in such a cute little bungalow!

The Shrine of the Miracle Rose Lady

This one's an oddity for certain. I've driven past the Shrine of the Miracle Rose Lady a thousand times (in fact, I used to work in this neighborhood), and yet my curiosity was never piqued enough to investigate. Then last month Pat and I took a little trip to Kansas and Oklahoma, and in planning our trip we consulted Roadside America, a site devoted to the oddities dotting the landscape of the United States. We're especially fascinated by muffler men, so we always try to work a muffler man sighting into any road trips we might be taking. I've never bothered to look into roadside oddities around Colorado Springs though, so I idly decided to just type it in to roadsideamerica.com and see what came up. Lo and behold, the Shrine of the Miracle Rose Lady popped up! I learned a little about it from the site:  apparently it came about when a lady named Rose Arveson died in 1963, and six roses placed on her casket withered and then miraculously came back to life. Her daughters, believing her to be a saint, created a shrine that become somewhat of a pilgrimage for the faithful.

I didn't enter the premises to photograph the actual shrine -- I just parked on the road and shot a picture of this statue from outside the arched gate. The place is rather run down and sad now, but I suppose that just adds to the mystique.

For more about the Shrine of the Miracle Rose Lady, check out Bill Vogrin's post about in on his popular Side Streets blog:  http://www.gazette.com/articles/vogrin-94323-gazette-colorado.html.

January 29, 2013 update:  Sad and disturbing news about the shrine.  Read about it here:  http://www.gazette.com/articles/city-150309-neighbor-condemned.html 

No, the Garden of the Gods did not burn down

The Waldo Canyon fire is going to have long term repercussions for Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs, and I'm not just talking about lost homes and forests. Our economy depends heavily on tourism, and unfortunately the extensive news coverage of the fire has effectively extinguished our tourist season. I think the assumption is that Pikes Peak, the Garden of the Gods and the Air Force Academy have burned down, but let me reassure you that all of our beautiful landmarks have survived the fire unscathed (the above photo was taken in the Garden of the Gods last Friday, with the fire still burning no less). In fact, the only attraction that's been destroyed is the Flying W Ranch, a much beloved local institution that is mourned by one and all. But other than that, there is no reason at all to cancel your plans to visit our beautiful city, so please come on by!

A city view

I took this picture at a wedding I shot last month, from the top floor of the Colorado Springs Marriott. I was preparing to take a photo of the bride and groom against the dramatic nighttime city backdrop, and this was just a quick test shot to check my exposure.  I thought it was too cool to delete so I posted it here instead :^)

Hula hoop happiness

The first Friday of every month, art galleries on the west side and downtown welcome one and all to openings. My good friend Angie had an opening at Cucuru on Colorado and 23rd (yay for Angie!); from there we went to Swirl in Manitou Springs (featuring artist Kris Chavez), then the Modbo and SPQR in downtown Colorado Springs (featuring, among others, the art of my friend Jess Preble).  This guy was entertaining us behind SPQR, along with his friend who had a talent for dancing and artfully hula-hooping at the same time. Please note that he is playing the drums, playing the accordion (which is WAY more difficult than it looks, trust me!) and singing all at once.  Heck I can't even do one of those things at a time, let alone all three!

More firefighter love

I ordinarily don't post more than one photo at a time, but since I've personally been documenting the Waldo Canyon fire so extensively it makes more sense to post multiple pictures rather than just one at a time, day after day. The fire is still burning but is almost 100% contained now. (Note:  "contained" does not mean extinguished; "100% contained" means they have successfully put a perimeter all the way around the burn, so it cannot grow any further.)  Here are a few images I captured in the last several days. The one above was taken at an impromptu firefighter appreciation rally, several of which have materialized in places where the fire crews are likely to drive by. This particular rally has been taking place daily on the corner of Fontmore and 31st, in the heart of a neighborhood called Pleasant Valley, which had been evacuated and narrowly escaped burning. The residents of Pleasant Valley are understandably quite grateful! On the evening I took this picture, scores upon scores of appreciative citizens endured heavy rain for hours (rain, yes RAIN, hooray!) to hold up signs and cheer like mad whenever a bus, truck or van bearing exhausted, sooty firefighters drove past on the way to their camp. Heck, there was even a junior high school marching band! I got there a little late for the band, and the crowd had thinned somewhat by then too since it was dark out, but I was able to get a few images that really captured the spirit of appreciation that these people are showing. It was extremely moving to witness.

If you would like to donate to the victims of the Waldo Canyon fire, here is a good way to do it:  http://www.indiegogo.com/WaldoCanyonWildfire 

More pictures below, with captions.

This neighborhood in Mountain Shadows was devastated.  You can see that many houses burned down.  But you can also see that many were saved.  This is because, when the fire breached the ridge on the west edge of our city, every single firefighter in Colorado Springs was deployed to battle the inferno.  Two of my friends lost their homes, and another  friend had such a close call that her patio furniture was scorched. In total 346 homes were lost, but many, many more were not, thanks to the efforts of the Colorado Springs Fire Department.

The aptly named "hot shot" firefighters who've been battling the Waldo Canyon fire for weeks are camped out at Holmes Middle School. These Springs residents have gathered every evening in front of the school to express their gratitude to the firefighters as they come in for the night.  Witnessing this brought tears to my eyes.

A fire crew drives by as grateful residents cheer.

The fire crews are camped at Holmes Middle School, right on the soccer field.  I guess their training is so ingrained, even when they're off duty they walk in single file.

On the corner of Fontmore and 31st there has been a huge appreciation rally for the firefighters every evening.  These people are cheering for a passing van of tired hot shots.

An emotional resident rushes to hug a firefighter.

A grateful man shaking the hand of a hot shot firefighter.

This last photo wasn't taken by me; it was posted on Facebook yesterday by one of my friends. Apparently the firefighters are getting the message that we love them! Thank you, firefighters!!!