It's Hot

It's been hot here on and off but it hasn't been too bad the last few days, mostly staying in the mid eighties to ninety degrees. We did have a record breaking day last month on June 17th when it hit a scorching 99° F in Colorado Springs, which is unheard of. I was blissfully unaware of exactly how hot it was that day, since we had air conditioning installed in our house last year and I was perfectly comfortable. I know that large swaths of Europe have been suffering from an extreme heat wave lately. Most people in Europe don't have AC, and I read that in some places temperatures there have been exceeding 100° F the last couple of weeks. That just sounds unbearable! So I dug into my archives for my European readers and found this nice, chilly moment captured on the grounds of the Union Printers Home way back on January 4, 2009 (yes, this blog has been around for that long). Maybe it'll help everyone feel a little cooler.

It's Fire Season

And here we are again. It seems like half the state is on fire and unfortunately we are in the middle of a historic drought. All that smoke is casting an eerie pall over the city, but I can't really complain since my own house is not in danger of burning down. As of this writing, the Aspen Acres Fire is fast approaching 100,000 acres burned and at least 275 homes lost in Custer and Pueblo counties; the Ferris Fire is at over 57,000 acres, the Gold Mountain Fire is at over 31,000 acres, and the Willow Fire is at over 4,300 acres. Pray for rain.

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.

A Little Pick-Me-Up

Well I don't know about you, but for me the news cycle just in the last few days has been utterly insane, which is causing me a lot of stress, sleeplessness and a petite soupçon of depression. Today I just about had enough when I saw our batsh*t crazy president's letter to the PM of Norway, Jonas Gahr Støre. After processing that nonsense I was treated to a horrible video of ICE agents violently smashing in the windows of a woman's car while simultaneously screaming at her and her passenger not to f*cking move and to f*cking get out of the car. How could they possibly comply with both of those orders? That was enough to make me jump in my car with a camera just to chase a few moments of sanity. I was looking for anything to focus on that might cheer me up when I drove past this cute little house on West Colorado Avenue that I've never noticed before. It's like someone just plopped it down there to lift my spirits.

SUV vs. King Soopers

What happened here? A Rivian SUV collided with the King Soopers grocery store on Uintah on Tuesday, and King Soopers won -- kind of. There's a giant, SUV-sized hole in the building now, after all. The driver of the vehicle said that it suddenly sped up and he couldn't stop it. Electric vehicles are very heavy, so it did a lot of damage. Luckily he missed any pedestrians, although including the driver, six people were injured, none of them seriously from what I understand. This is one of the grocery stores that Pat and I frequent (it's our #2 choice after the Bon Safeway), so we know the layout of it well. The vehicle crashed into the part of the store where the self checkout lanes are. Imagine this: you're scanning and bagging your groceries, minding your own business, and suddenly a giant SUV crashes through the wall right into the store like the Kool-Aid Man. Hilarious! I'm laughing, but I'm sure it was scary and quite alarming for anyone who happened to be there. The store was closed for a day or two, but it's already up and running again, as you can see.

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I had to step away from the blog for a couple of days so I  could process the awful election news. Let's just say I'm disgusted with my country right now and leave it at that. Just ugh. God help us all. Now that I've gotten that off my chest, here's a pretty picture to distract you. See you tomorrow, hopefully in a better mood.

Cripple Creek Spookiness and Other Stuff

Yesterday was kind of awful, to be honest, and I didn't have a chance to do a blog post, so hopefully this makes up for it. In our leaf peeping adventure last Friday, my friend JB and I drove through Cripple Creek in search of Sunnyside Cemetery. I had forgotten that it's in Victor, so we were in the wrong town, but only about four or five miles separate Cripple Creek from Victor -- no big deal. Anyway, before leaving Cripple Creek we stopped for a couple of snapshots. This house sure had the Halloween thing going on! What fun!

By the way, you may have heard that tiny Cripple Creek was in the national news today, but not for a good reason, unfortunately. There was an elevator accident in the historic Mollie Kathleen mine, resulting in one fatality and almost two dozen people being trapped 1,000 feet below the surface for several hours. You can read about it here.

The cute house next door.

The even cuter house next door to the cute house next door.

Silver Birds, Grey Skies

Artist Kent Ullberg's iconic whooping cranes looked so fetching the other day, I had to stop for a picture even though I've featured this artwork here on the blog many times before (here, for instance). Behind it sits the Cascade Park Apartments, looking very spiffy in summer. Do you notice how grey and horrible the sky looks? Multiple forest fires out of state and in Canada have been casting a smoky pall over a huge swath of the United States lately, and it's been sitting over Colorado Springs and Denver for the last three or four days. The situation in Denver was so bad yesterday, I heard on the news that it was literally the worst air quality in the entire world. And we are just south of Denver, so you can imagine how bad it's been here, too. Unfortunately when this happens, it has a very undesirable effect: my right eye will swell up and weep nonstop, and it feels like I have grit stuck in my eye that won't budge. It's pretty awful. For two and a half days, all I could do was keep dumping Visine into one or both eyes, although it didn't much help. Thank goodness the cloak of gloom finally (mostly) shifted away from us late this afternoon.

The Sky's Gone Out (Again)

Today was total solar eclipse day! It was also Pat's birthday, and what an awesome birthday present for him, right? This is the third solar eclipse in Colorado in seven years, which is pretty cool if you ask me. Here in Colorado Springs today's eclipse was 67% at its maximum, so I heard. This photo was taken at 12:39 PM, exactly at the apex of the big event, and it's a miracle that I got a picture at all. I of course was wearing eclipse glasses, which are so dark you can't even see your hand in front of your face. I'd set my camera down on the roof of the car to put the glasses on, then I would be unable to find the camera again! I was having no luck at all getting a good exposure since I didn't have a proper filter, so Pat ended up holding the cheesy plastic eclipse glasses in front of my lens and I bracketed my exposures, rapid fire. I couldn't even tell if I was getting anything, let alone anything in focus. It wasn't until I got home that I saw exactly two sharp and well exposed images out of the many pictures I took. Anyway, that was fun and since it's going to be a very long time before it happens again in our neck of the woods (the year 2043 is being bandied about), I'm glad I managed to get a decent shot for the blog.

Tomorrow is Super Tuesday -- Don't Forget to Vote!

If you haven't noticed, it's an election year. Here in Colorado we can vote by mail (yay!), but since tomorrow is the deadline, if you haven't cast your ballot in the primary yet, it's too late to mail it but you can drop it off at any of the many polling places here in El Paso County, including this ballot box in the parking lot of the Charmaine Nymann Community Garden, of all places.

Car vs. Building

I'm not sure if the building won this altercation. A couple of weeks ago, a man -- after first assaulting his wife, backing his vehicle into a neighbor's car, attempting to break into another neighbor's house, then getting getting shot by that neighbor (!!!) -- crashed his car into a building downtown. Apparently he was driving at a very high rate of speed; one estimate was that he was going 100 miles per hour, though that seems like a bit of an exaggeration to me. Anyway, he pretty much destroyed the Skirted Heifer, which is a popular restaurant on Tejon and Bijou. Thankfully this happened in the wee hours of the morning, so despite all the damage he did to the building, vehicles on the street, his own car, and himself, the guy at least managed to avoid flattening any humans.

The poor Skirted Heifer! I don't eat there since I'm a vegetarian, but I have heard that their burgers are outrageously good, and the place is always busy. I guess it's going to be a while before they can get it all repaired and back to service again. A Go Fund Me has been set up for their employees, who are obviously not able to work right now. If you care to contribute, click HERE.

In Memory of Gannon Stauch

I took these pictures a few days ago and I guess I've put off posting them because they make me so sad. Gannon Stauch was an 11 year old local boy who was murdered in 2020 by his stepmother, who stabbed, beat and shot him, then fled with his body, which was found under a bridge in Florida. She was tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Local artist Paes 164 recently created this mural in honor of Gannon, painting over a personal favorite mural of mine that depicted Mozart (HERE, in case you're curious). I think it's a worthy replacement.

I don't know what possesses adults to lose control and abuse a defenseless child in any way, shape or form, let alone kill them. It's absolutely senseless. We are meant to nurture and protect children, not destroy them. This terrible crime affected all of us here; the news coverage was relentless and nationwide. Sadly, yet another local mother has recently done the same thing: in December, Kimberlee Singler allegedly murdered two of her three children and badly injured the third one. She then fled to England, where she was soon arrested.

Sadly, there really isn't any justice in my mind for abused and murdered children. You can punish the abuser but the deed is done.

Bee City

Did you know that Manitou Springs was recently named a certified pollinator district? I think that's pretty cool! You can read more about that HERE. This bee themed "mural" (it's really more like a sticker or wallpaper) on the side of a building on Manitou Avenue is quite appropriate, don't you agree? 

Explosive Subject Matter

Last week this garage in Knob Hill somehow had an explosion that developed into rather a dramatic structure fire. It's right next to Fargo's, too. Yikes! Thankfully no one was injured or killed. I guess there was a large plume of black smoke that filled the air, and several fire trucks were deployed to battle the blaze. I swear I drove right past this intersection twice that afternoon and noticed nothing. Apparently I'm oblivious. Ha!

These Colors Don't Run

You'll find rainbow flags all over downtown right now, in honor of the Club Q victims, including this huge one festooning the front of First Congregational Church on Saint Vrain and Tejon.

Tomorrow (Friday, December 2nd) there is a benefit show at Bar K, 124 E Costilla St,, at 6:00 PM. All proceeds will go to The Colorado Healing Fund. If you're in town, you should go.

Club Q

I have avoided posting the last few days because I didn't know what to say. Surely by now you're aware of the mass shooting at a gay nightclub called Club Q here in Colorado Springs on Saturday night. I've just been so angry, I could barely form words to write about it. Club Q is less than half a block from my photography studio, it's probably only a mile from the house where I spent my teenage years, and most importantly, it's a safe haven for our local LGBTQ+ community, among whom I count many lifelong friends.

This disgusting, cowardly act ended the lives of five innocent people and impacted so many more. Five families will be grieving on Thanksgiving instead of celebrating. Pat and I are so very shocked and saddened. On Sunday evening we went to the makeshift memorial where people had been gathering all day, to pay our respects and add flowers to the growing pile. But flowers don't help. Thoughts and prayers don't help. Legislation helps. It's my sincerest hope that soon our elected officials of a certain political party will finally be courageous enough to stand up to the bullying of what is truly only a minority of Americans, and do the right thing by passing common sense gun legislation.

To the people who lost their loved ones in this horrible, unthinkable event, I am holding you in my heart. They didn't deserve this. You didn't deserve this. For any Coloradoan who is feeling that the weight of this tragedy is too much to bear, please, please get in touch with the good folks at Colorado Crisis Services, and anyone, anywhere, especially if you're LGBTQ+, can call the National LGBT Hotline for help and support.

Danger, Fire

You've probably heard the sad news that Boulder County suffered two raging fires on December 30th, this coming only three days after a mass shooting in Denver killed five people. It's been a rough few days on us Coloradoans. Over 900 structures burned in Boulder County, most of them homes, and as I type this the remains of one person have been found while another person is still classified as missing. The destruction was breathtakingly quick, all too reminiscent of the Waldo Canyon Fire in 2012 and the Black Forest Fire in 2013, collectively destroying about 857 homes here in our own city. Thus far it's been a dry, dry, dry winter and the winds have been insane. The threat of fire has us all on edge, even those of us who live in the middle of the city.

Another Crazy Windstorm

On Thursday we had extremely high winds for hours. It knocked out the power in large swaths of the city, including my house. Fortunately I was without electricity for only about two hours, but many others, including my brother and several of my friends, went two days with no power. And it's been very cold at night! Thankfully electric has finally been fully restored, however there are still crews all over the city still dealing with the many, many trees that lost the battle against the wind. There are scenes like this in every neighborhood. This storm did a lot of damage.

Post-Apocalyptic Picnic

These two were enjoying a rather extravagant looking picnic at the overlook last Saturday evening, even though the view was completely obscured by the thick haze that has enveloped the entire region, thanks to forest fires over a thousand miles away.

The Sky's Gone Out

Our view on Saturday, August 7th was like something out of science fiction, not our usual crystal clear skies. In fact, on the day I took this picture, Denver (north of us by less than an hour) had some of the worst air quality in the entire world. Forest fires in Oregon and California are causing this. People are advised to stay indoors until this clears away, and the mountain has practically disappeared for the time being. I'm not complaining, though. The people who are directly impacted by these fires have got it far worse.

And now, for your listening pleasure: