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The crown jewel of downtown, our lovely Pioneers Museum in high summer.

Greased Lightnin'!

We saw this classic downtown a few days ago and I had to stop for a photo since it reminded me of the "Greased Lightnin'" car from Grease. Of course that was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid! How could tween-aged Tamera resist John Travolta, after all? Ha! 

And now, for your listening (and viewing) pleasure...

Sunday Style!

While I was roaming around downtown last Saturday I came across this lovely mom and daughter duo. They had just come from celebrating the daughter's 20th birthday at Toodles Tea Room and were dressed perfectly for the occasion. Happy birthday to Greydi, you looked delightful on your big day, and so did your mom! Thanks for the photo!

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The doors to the historic El Paso Club (see yesterday's post). I've never noticed that they're off center. Look again. They are positioned slightly to the right of center for some reason. This bugs me, darn it. Ha!

Men Only

The famous El Paso Club, which is still strictly an old school "gentlemen only" bastion, one of the few left of its kind I suppose. Only men can become members. I've entered its hallowed halls only as a wedding and event photographer, never as a guest. It's really nice in there but you'd think they'd get on board with the rest of society already.

Summer

It's summer, which means school's out and the days are long, woo hoo! And the Uncle Wilber Fountain in Acacia Park is hard at work keeping local kids cool. I love summer, don't you?

Adventure Dog

Spied on Tejon and Platte on Saturday: bicyclist with a be-goggled little buddy on board. Cute! I like the Colorado flag socks too.

Bus + Fire Truck = Big Bang

On Saturday afternoon I was downtown, and over an entire block was inaccessible because a fire truck had collided with a bus, both vehicles at full speed. (Actually it was a Bustang.) From what I understand, the fire truck was on its way to a medical emergency and struck the bus at the intersection of Tejon and Bijou. For a couple of blocks in all directions barriers had been set up so it was impossible to park nearby, but it was easy enough to approach it on foot. Apparently several people were injured but none of them too seriously.

Speaking of Old Houses...

A couple of weeks ago my friend Chuck made a Facebook post about a movie he had been in many years ago, and it brought back some memories for me. Around the late 1980s and early 1990s, for some reason Hollywood randomly noticed the Pioneers Museum. Subsequently a few made for TV movies were filmed there, especially in the historic old courtroom. I remember these productions quite well because at the time I was working in a pro camera shop downtown called Shewmaker's, and film crew members stopped in once or twice to pick up movie-making related supplies. Anyway, these movies required extras, so lots of local folks got to be "background," including some of my friends.

The movie in which Chuck had a small role was called "The Incident", and it starred the venerable Walter Matthau as a small town defense attorney in WWII era Colorado who is compelled to represent a Nazi who's been accused of murder. In the film, there is a POW camp located just outside of town (the old Alexander Film Company's headquarters were used for the location) and it was chock full of captured Nazis. Chuck got a non speaking role as a menacing Nazi who threatens to beat up Walter Matthau with a baseball bat.

The house that stood in for Walter Matthau's home was featured quite a few times in the film along with many other familiar locations, such as Bancroft Park, Fairview Cemetery and the Garden of the Gods. Out of curiosity I decided to see if I could actually find the house. Clearly it was in Old Colorado City, and after driving around for just a few minutes I came across it on Pikes Peak Avenue just west of 17th Street. It's a beautiful home and my internet snooping tells me it that it was built in 1908 and is currently worth between $925,000 and $1,000,000.

As for the movie, Pat and I watched it on Amazon Prime after Chuck dredged it up on Facebook, and since I'd never actually seen it before I was very amused to spot a few other friends in it, too: Tony, Elizabeth and Eric. They all looked so young! And of course it was fun to see all the locations used around town. It's worth mentioning too that it was a decent film, by no means was it a clunker. We were entertained. So if you want to see what Colorado Springs looked like in 1990 while masquerading as "Lincoln Bluff" in 1944, you should give it a watch! And if you do, when you get to the scene where Walter Matthau is being threatened by three Nazis in the infirmary, Chuck is the strapping young man on the left.

June 2026 Theme Day: Sky

Well I took an unannounced break from the blog all of last week. It just sort of happened, I didn't plan to go AWOL! I was on "staycation" and busied myself with all kinds of projects around the house and garden. The weather was rainy for several days on end and that made it difficult to take any pictures, then I was scurrying to catch up on outside projects when the sun finally came out. So basically, I didn't have any pictures to share here. Anyway, I just realized that today is the first day of June, so that means it's Theme Day! This month the theme is sky. I did a little digging in my archives and there were lots of photos that fit the bill, but I thought this one was a standout. It was taken on January 29, 2021, and it sure looks like I was standing in the parking lot of our downtown library to get this awesome view of the Peak.

For more takes on the theme, check out the City Daily Photo portal HERE. Enjoy!

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A more or less life sized statue inspired (apparently) by early residents of Colorado Springs. I don't think they represent actual historic individuals. You can find it on Tejon Street a little south of Colorado. I have no idea what it's called but I can tell you that the lantern works.

Fave No Kings Messaging (Part 5)

My last few shots from the protest. I hope you enjoyed them! More importantly, I hope you're finding effective ways to make your voice heard, too!

My beautiful friends Julianna and Marian. They're sisters.

Fave No Kings Messaging (Part 4)

I admire the cleverness of creating signs or messages that allow you to keep your hands free, like the hoodie in the photo above (I need that!), or headwear, or sandwich boards. I think the next time I participate in a protest I'm going to try the sandwich board approach.

Fave No Kings Messaging (Part 3)

I hope you're enjoying all the protest signs. I took all of these with my cell phone, by the way. I hate to be encumbered by an actual camera during an event like this, but on the other hand I think my cell phone takes lousy pictures by comparison. Oh well! Which one of these signs do you like best? My favorite is definitely the one at the top of this post. That took some effort!

Fave No Kings Messaging (Part 2)

More faves from the march! I love how funny some of the signs are. Humor is helping us all save our sanity right now. I'll take all I can get.

Fave No Kings Messaging (Part 1)

I'm going to spend the next few days sharing my favorite signs from our local No Kings protest on March 28th. That's me in the photo above! Did you participate in your city? We had a huge turnout here, it was fun!

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Just a random building downtown, taken last Sunday, which was a very nice day to be downtown.

International Women’s Day March

On Sunday we went for brunch downtown. As we were leaving, this large gaggle of protestors came marching down the sidewalk. I didn't even realize that there was a protest planned, otherwise I would have participated!

Now You See It, Now You Don't

This is what the weather looked like on Friday, seen from 8th Street looking toward downtown. Twenty four hours later the snow had completely melted away and the sun was shining.

First Congregational

Here's one of our historic downtown churches, First Congregational. I've blogged about it many times. This impressive building with its distinctively massive stone columns was completed in 1889 and sits on the northwest corner of Tejon and Saint Vrain, in the Near North End neighborhood. According to Wikipedia, it's listed on the National Historic Register and "Its design is in the Richardsonian Romanesque style and is constructed of Colorado Wall Mountain Tuft (rhyolite) quarried near Castle Rock, Colorado." It cost $40,000 to build, which is somewhat hilarious until you do the math: that's about $1,409,226.09 in today's money! Anyway, I think it's gorgeous, and having documented my share of weddings at First Congregational, I can tell you that the inside of it is beautiful as well.