Thank you firefighters!

Truly, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you. There are 1,000 brave firefighters currently battling the Waldo Canyon blaze, and everyone in our city is expressing their appreciation. Pat and I drove around yesterday evening and photographed impromptu displays of gratitude. I agree heartily with every one of these signs. Thank you, thank you firefighters! You are our heroes!

This sign was right in front of the firehouse on Colorado and Limit. As I was taking this picture, two ladies showed up with large quantities of homemade food and knocked on the door, hoping to give it to the firefighters.

This one doesn't mention firefighters, but I think it's my favorite because it shows how much our community has rallied together over this crisis. We may not always agree on everything, but we are all in this together.

Colorado Springs is in flames

If you've been following the national news (and this blog), you're probably aware of the huge fire that has been threatening Colorado Springs since Saturday.  I'm sorry to say that on Tuesday, thanks to 65MPH winds, it crossed over the ridge and is now burning homes in the Mountain Shadows neighborhood.  Rockrimmon is perilously closeby, and the Air Force Academy is also in great peril.


Pat and I had planned a trip to Atchison, Kansas to see Amelia Earhart's birthplace, then to Tulsa, Oklahoma just for fun.  I am typing this from our hotel room in Atchison and anxiously watching the live news feed online from one of the TV stations in Colorado Springs.  We left the Springs a little after noon and all seemed relatively fine for Colorado Springs -- the fire had continued to creep northward but parallel to the city.  But when we checked our smart phones around 5:30, all our friends had been posting horrifying pictures on Facebook, the Air Force Academy was evacuating, and homes were burning.  The above photo was not taken by me (since I'm in Kansas and for that matter I would never have the occasion to be that close to the fire); I'm linking to it from the Twitter feed #waldocanyonfire.  (NOTE: I have since learned it was taken by a Denver Post photog.)


Pat and I have decided to cut short our trip and return home.  We cannot bear to be away from our beautiful city when it is in such crisis.  So many of our friends have been affected by this, among the many, many thousands that have been evacuated -- over 32,000 people.  The neighborhood where  Pat grew up is in extreme peril, and I fear that some of my close friends who live in the neighborhood pictured above have now lost their homes. Below, a couple more pictures (not taken by me) that friends have posted to Facebook. For more pictures see the Gazette's website at http://www.gazette.com/sections/slideshow/?id=14914887 

 

This is the Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel.

The Mountain Shadows neighborhood. I have many, many friends and clients who live here.

These last two shots look like they were taken from farther east in the city.

The heat is on

The Waldo Canyon fire continues just outside our city limits, and it's still 0% contained.  It's now reached 3,600 acres with no end in sight.  I know that it just looks like a little plume of smoke in this picture, but if you look more closely you'll see that everything to the right of that dark plume of smoke is, well, more smoke. And those "clouds" to the left of it?  Again, more smoke.  It's really bad and getting worse.  To add to the drama, the mercury broke 100 F degrees yesterday (38 Celsius), and the record-breaking heat is expected to continue with no moisture predicted at all.

There is some good news, though:  Manitou Springs residents, who were 100% evacuated last night, have been allowed to go back home for now; the winds have kept the fire away from Colorado Springs and contained to Forest Service land; and not a single life or structure has been lost.  There has been a huge outpouring of support among residents for both the evacuees and the firefighters, with donations of non-perishable food, money, ice and Gatorade.  Even though Manitou residents are back at home, many many residents of Colorado Springs and the smaller towns up the pass remain in shelters, not to mention the countless tourists that came here expecting a nice vacation. They will have some stories to tell when they get back home! 

Meanwhile, fire-watching has become somewhat of a spectator sport among the locals. People are gathered at various high spots in town, cameras in hand, trying to get pictures of the out-of-control blaze that threatens our city. The photo above was taken at the Garden of the Gods overlook on Mesa (the same spot where I took the photo for yesterday's post). There were dozens of curious people there, in the parking lot and along the road. Not only has this fire been unsettling and frightening, it's been more than a little fascinating for those of us who live here.

This is not a sunset

It's a forest fire. And it's raging just west of Colorado Springs. Over 2,500 acres burned at last report, 0% contained. Neighborhoods on the west and northwest edges of our city have been evacuated, and the entire town of Manitou Springs has been evacuated as of about 2:30am. I first noticed the smoke while driving around my cousin's neighborhood around 2:20pm. I couldn't find her house (I always get lost in her neighborhood), got turned around and found myself facing a huge plume of smoke to the west. Naturally, I took a picture. On the way to my studio after leaving her house, I took another. And I took the above picture at 2:20am from the Garden of the Gods overlook, the very same spot where I took the picture that is the masthead of this blog.

This is extremely distressing. The wildlife has been burnt out of its habitat and there are animals in the streets (we nearly hit a deer while driving to take the above picture). The air smells like smoke. Many of my friends have been evacuated from their homes. And this fire was not caused by Mother Nature. There hasn't been any lightning -- no, this is a manmade catastrophe, and it's getting worse. Everyone in Colorado Springs is praying for rain. More pictures below.

According to the authorities, the fire started at around 1:00pm. I took this photo from my cousin's neighborhood at 2:21pm. You can't tell from this picture, but I could actually see the flames, and this is miles from the fire.



2:53pm, just half an hour later. The fire had consumed about 150 acres at this point. It is now over 2,500.

Monument Creek from above

I took this picture the other evening while on a walk with Pat at Monument Valley Park. This is Monument Creek, looking straight down at it from the bridge at the south end of the park. It looks strangely puny from this perspective.

Chadbourn Community Church update

A view Chadbourn Community Church at twilight. I blogged about Chadbourn three years ago. You can read my original post HERE.  Recently this little church was in the news, and unfortunately it was for a bad reason -- it was robbed.  Apparently some criminals broke in and tore the place up, looking for copper wire and plumbing.  It's bad enough they stole, but they also felt the need to rough up the place and do some damage.  I'm sorry to hear that.  I have a soft spot for Chadbourn Community Church and I hope its little congregation can recover from this terrible incident.

The glowing obelisk

One of the two obelisks that sit side by side at the entrance to America the Beautiful Park, with the Front Range in the background, captured at twilight.  The obelisks are lit from within, and the lights change colors every few seconds.

A little relief?

Sunday was the first really hot day of the summer.  It was 96 F degrees (about 36 C) when I took this picture at the Good Earth Garden Center on Walnut Street, where I went to rescue a friend who was stranded by a flat tire. They had quite a few lovely fountains like this one on offer, and I wished I could dive in to any of them to get a little relief from the heat.  I was very tempted to pick one up along with my friend!

The Big Thompson River

I took this photo on Friday in Loveland, where I was shooting a wedding at a ranch... just took a little break during dinner and strolled across the lawn to this lovely view of the Big Thompson River right before sunset.  You'd never know it, but there was (and still is) an enormous forest fire raging just a little northwest of this peaceful spot.

To see a few pictures from the wedding, click HERE.

The Concours d'Elegance exotic car show

My brother Chuck and I are both gearheads, though he's far, far more afflicted than I am!  I think after years and years of listening to him talk endlessly about cars, it must have sunk into my brain and psyche a little.  If you're a regular reader of this blog you probably know that I own a vintage BMW a lot like the one in the photo above, and in the past I've owned a couple of vintage VW Karmann Ghias.  I love little German cars, yes I do!  Chuck currently owns a modern BMW -- an M3, to be exact -- and a 1985 Alfa Romeo GTV6, which is in perfect condition.  He's put a lot of love into it over the years.  It's a real babe!

Every summer there's a big exotic car show held at Arapahoe Community College in Littleton (southwest Denver) to benefit Cerebral Palsy, and Chuck relishes the chance to show off his Alfa there.  I try to make it most years but am nearly always foiled by wedding season.  This year I did make it to the Concours, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself! I never get tired of looking at beautiful cars.  One of these years I'm going to get my '72 BMW 2002 Tii all spiffed up and show it off too, just like my big brother :^)

Here are a few pictures of some remarkable cars at this year's Concours d'Elegance:

Here's Chuck with his beautiful '85 Alfa Romeo GTV6.

This Mercedes Gullwing is to die for!

Can you believe this Lamborghini Countach once belonged to basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain?!?  Imagine a 7'-1" man trying to fit into it!

The BMW Isetta is one of the most unique little cars ever produced, in my opinion. I would love to have one. This Isetta was immaculate, showroom perfect. I'd love to drive it!

Waterboarding for Jesus?

I saw this guy making a statement on Uintah and Nevada last Friday while I was coming home from a wedding rehearsal. I was very puzzled by his message and costume. Okay, he's dressed like a Catholic cardinal, holding up a sign during rush hour traffic that says, "Waterboard for Jesus, support our troops." Huh? I couldn't figure out if he was pro-waterboarding or anti-waterboarding. But, this being Colorado Springs where we have our share of very right wing extremists, I've concluded that he must be pro-waterboarding, even though it's classified as torture. Hmmmm, I'm pretty sure that Jesus probably wouldn't appreciate anyone being tortured on his behalf. What would Jesus do? Jesus was a pacifist. He sure as heck wouldn't waterboard anyone!

The storm of the century

Today I'm going to post more than one photo, because I couldn't tell the story of Wednesday night's weather with just a single image. I was at my studio around 7:00pm, working hard, when it started to rain. I didn't pay much attention until it suddenly started to sound really violent out there. I went to the window to see what was going on and, having grown up in the Philippines, all I can tell you is that it looked like a typhoon was passing over my building! Insanely high winds whipping the trees around, lashing sheets of rain -- it was like I was reliving the storms of my childhood on Luzon. Then the hail started. Thankfully the worst of it passed relatively quickly and settled into merely high winds and rain instead of tornado-like winds, Niagara falls and hail. I was able to dash out of there and meet my friends for pub quiz relatively unscathed.

What I didn't realize was that in the area where my house is, and especially in my brother's neighborhood, the storm was far more lasting and violent. My friend Stephani texted me from her home in the middle of the maelstrom, saying she was trapped by the hail and afraid to go outside. 45 minutes later she was still trapped and there was two feet of water in her backyard. Luckily my house wasn't as hard hit as hers, but when I got home from pub quiz at 10:30pm there was still hail in my yard, and my entire street, everyone's yards and most of the roofs in my neighborhood were literally covered in debris from the trees, plus mud everywhere. It must have been crazy and I missed the entire thing, holed up as I was at my studio. When I saw the footage on the news of my brother's neighborhood, I was dumbfounded. People trapped in their cars with water and hail up to the windows, basements flooded, trees down. The hail was the size of golf balls. It was insane!

So yesterday Pat and I decided to take a drive down to the Citadel Mall, which was apparently the epicenter of the madness, and we were just amazed at what we saw. Enormous parking lots still covered in hail (and this was at high noon on a very warm day) while earth movers and dump trucks were hard at work trying to remove the hail and debris from the streets in that neighborhood. I've lived here since I was 14 years old, and I'll be the first to say that we have crazy weather here but I've never seen anything quite like this! Our mayor called it the Storm of the Century. I have to agree.

The above photo shows a parking lot deep with hail and debris while cleanup crews toil in the background on Chelton Road. More photos below. And HERE is a link to one of our local news stations showing video of the storm (watch it, you'll be amazed).

Here's Pat posing in front of a huge pile of hail and debris, the day after the storm.

An earth-mover and crews working to get the hail and debris off the streets.

A few people showed up to watch the clean-up.

Another view of the earth-mover. Look at that huge load!  While we were there we watched it scoop up several like this. It was truly mind-boggling.

A very busy bee

The bees were hard at work in the demonstration garden at Monument Valley Park on Sunday.

A yellow labrador non-retriever

Pat and I took a little walk in Monument Valley Park on Sunday afternoon. It was a perfect day to get outside and enjoy the early summer weather, and there were plenty of people about doing just that. I captured this yellow labrador retriever and his mistress playing frisbee on the big lawn past the baseball diamond. I thought it was cute how he didn't "retrieve" the disk at all -- in fact he galloped right past her and kept on going! She had to chase him down to get it back. Hilarious!

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Pat and I came across this rather odd building on Knob Hill the other day, and I felt compelled to go back yesterday to photograph it. I like how the pickets of the fence mimic the shape of the large triangular windows.

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Two very brightly colored houses deep on the west side. Most of the old houses on this part of Colorado Avenue aren't homes anymore, they're businesses like these two. The blue and red house on the left is now a staffing agency, and the yellow, green and grey house on the right is a medical marijuana dispensary. We have a lot of medical marijuana places in Colorado Springs and it's pretty controversial. That's definitely a subject for a different post!

June theme day: tranquility

It's the first of the month and that means Theme Day for City Daily Photo bloggers! June's theme is tranquility. I kept it close to home this month and took a picture of my aquarium. I've been an aquarium hobbyist since I was in junior high school -- in fact, since I was about 13 I've continuously kept fish no matter where I lived, which is an accomplishment I suppose. I love aquariums and I keep it simple: just a freshwater community tank for me, stocked with peaceful fish such as tetras, platys and corydoras. I find it very tranquil indeed to just sit in front of the tank and watch my little fish flit back and forth.

On a side note, please forgive me faithful readers for not blogging every single day lately. It's wedding season and I'm on the run! I'm sure things will continue to be a little sporadic here on the blog until I settle into a rhythm and find some "me" time to go out and take some pictures of my lovely city for you.

Happy summer! To see more tranquil Theme Day pictures from CDP bloggers the world over, click here to view thumbnails for all participants.