Dear Family, Friends, and Diary,
We ended May with a week of preparing for our trip to see family in Colorado and Maryland. Marianne worked in plenty of last-minute shopping and trips to various Kaiser folks. My preps were easier. No new clothes, no health checks, just tidy up the garden and attend to a small "civic duty". Our succulents and cacti are particularly thriving, easy enough in our climate.
For community duty, I attended city planner presentations as they explained a new intersection happening nearby. Two major roads, Blackstone and McKinley, are being lowered below the Burlington and Northern train tracks and it will be significant construction. It promises to be three or four years of disturbance, but a concrete start to improvements to the Blackstone corridor. Between the impact of the temporary relocation and new road elevations, a few dozen small businesses will be removed, but that can be an improvement in our neighborhood. Hopefully, the replacement developments will be nicer than the shabby used car lots that seem to dominate Blackstone. We had been part of a community effort a few years ago to plan area improvements, so it is good to see a promise of real activity.
Our four-week trip started on Friday, the last day of May. After way too much worrying, travel itself was mostly painless. Jose, the Uber driver, showed up on time and drove safely on the twenty-minute trip to FAT, Fresno/Yosemite International Airport. There were no lines at the check-in gate or security, an advantage of small airports. I think we took no more than 10 or 15 minutes from the curb to inside the gate area.
Flying out, we passed over Fresno sprawl, and then the still-snowy Sierras. The beauty was followed by an hour over brown desert, not picture-worthy. Passing over the Rockies, clouds obscured any view, so I am substituting the Flatirons puzzle I had completed in preparation for our visit. Descent was not-too-lumpy and free of the ear problems Marianne sometimes suffers. Landing was soft and early enough that we left the baggage area not much later than our scheduled arrival time. Pretty amazing for such a massive facility as DEN.
We caught the bus to Budget Car Rentals and the efficiency ended. The bus took ten minutes, but the line of would-be renters filled the waiting area and we were stuck there for over an hour. This wait earned us an "upgrade" to a massive Ford Expedition. I definitely would have preferred our reserved "small SUV", but there will be plenty of space to haul around our Longmont family.
We managed to reach that family about 8pm, local time, and decided to head out for a bite to eat. We experimented with the just-opened Food Court and were greeted with an array of food options and lots of loud music and happy chatter. We joined in the food and chatter and, I have to say, it was fun talking in-person to Brian, Jen, and Rich. Most Fridays, we settle for Zoom conversations, but this was much better.
Saturday started with breakfast at our hotel: Home2 Suites. We have to say this is one of the most thought-out chain hotels we've found, with plenty of space, amenities, and not-too-bad breakfasts.
From there, we picked up the family and headed to the Longmont Museum for a a LEGO showing. Sounded like fun and it was. The show was organized in part by DENLUG, The Denver LEGO Users Group, and COLUG, The Colorado LEGO Users Group. While the space was filled with kids, the group are really for adult users of the plastic building pieces and many of the works on display were way more complicated than those little cars parents step on.
The smaller part of the Longmont Museum was dedicated to local history, the types of displays every small European town we generally visited also had. We used to refer to them as pots-and-shards museums - educational, in a limited way, and evidence of justified local pride. In Longmont's case, history is much briefer, but the pride is still there. At least worth a picture.
Technology and history out of the way, it was time for art.
We went to downtown Longmont, at a very small gallery called The Firehouse Art Center, where Irene Delka McCray was showing "Mother Lasting". From the gallery description:
"McCray paints her mother on large canvases, the images much larger than life, to acknowledge her enormous impact, as well as to focus on the beautiful and complex profundities of wizened old flesh. The exhibition is meant to remind and connect members of the community in mutual familiarity to their own experiences with elderly loved ones."
The paintings and drawings were unforgettable.
We tried window shopping, but were not too successful, except for lunch at Teocalli Cocina, a recently-opened restaurant offering regional Mexican cuisine. I have to say the imagination and quality beat most of our score of Fresno Mexican spots. Maybe they need to expand?
For dessert, some of our group picked up sweets from Scrumptious, a candy and ice cream store that had ALL the old candy offerings from childhood - even from my childhood, a zillion years ago. No wonder they claim to be the best candy store in the Denver area.
After a quick nap, we gathered our group again and returned to downtown Longmont, this time for a music and street food fest. Everything was local, the music, the food, and the crowds of young families enjoying the almost-summer evening. We were in such a good mood that Rich, Brian, and I even agreed to pose for a picture. (I discovered I have become the shortest in the bunch.)
Sunday was another slowish start with our Home2 buffet breakfast, diary writing, and chatting. Then we picked up Brian, Jen and Rich and drove south, with the Front Range off to our right. The view was nice enough to warrant an addition to Marianne's travel sketch book - a favorite memory device for our travels.
Our goal this morning was the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster. The Pavilion has been a go-to attraction for our family ever since Rich was little: educational and very picture-worthy. Maybe too picture-worthy. I had to weed down the 150+ camera images to about 30 "keepers" for the diary and that's twice what diaries SHOULD have. Oh well, browse quickly.
The galleries start with bugs - mostly giant bugs. The katydid in the second picture was at least 10 inches long! The Pink Brazilian Tarantula was hand-sized, a big-hand-sized.
Next up were water scenes, with bugs and small to tiny fishes. Cute.
Inside the butterfly room, I was first drawn to the flowers, part of the butterfly diet.
But it was the butterflies that were the main attraction. They were everywhere, colorful and dynamic. Rich knew all the details and identified every creature with name and background. I took iPhone pictures. So did Marianne. Here are a few.
It was considered lucky if a butterfly decided to land on a visitor so I guess we were lucky
All the butterflies came from this nursery. Researchers, mostly in South America and South Asia, send the chrysalis to this Colorado center where they are nurtured to hatching and released into the recreated jungle. This artificial space is kept free from plants where butterflies lay eggs, so the only way into this community is via the managed hatchery.
Hungry after all that jungle hiking, we headed across the highway to get Smashburger sandwiches. Tasty. Then it was back to Longmont for a session of Codenames. For a couple years now, it was been a tradition to play the game on-line with Brian, Jen, and Geoff every Friday so it seemed appropriate to try our skills with the cardboard version. We won.
On Monday, Brian needed to work, so Marianne, Jen, Rich and I headed to Boulder.
If you have read many of these diaries, you know I spend a fair amount of time doing jigsaw puzzles and my favorite brand, Liberty Puzzles, is made right here in Boulder. The website mentioned "factory tours", so that was our first goal. The "factory" is in a nondescript light-industrial building on the outskirts of town. We asked the receptionist for our tour and they pulled "Max" from his work and he led us through the whole process.
Pictures were limited, but Max's Liberty Puzzle story was fascinating. Started in 2005, prompted by the founders' childhood memories of family puzzle-making, the business has grown from two founders to a business of over 100 people today. Each wooden puzzle is designed, printed, laser-cut, and finished in this factory, with both traditional art and products of local artists. Over 1,000 designs are in inventory, with each one a separate cut pattern. Early on, the owners found an amazing pattern-maker among their workers and that craftsman now makes ALL of the new Liberty patterns - from as few as a few dozen to over 1,200 pieces per picture.
On our tour, we saw some of the dozens and dozens of laser cutters toiling away making the intricate patterns, taking from a few minutes to over an hour for each set. From the lasers, each set was varnished and then finished by hand to make sure each cut was complete and clean.
Liberty is unique in that it offers to replace any missing or destroyed pieces. Max showed us the "wall of shame" where customers asking for replacements send in pictures of the dogs or cats or vacuum cleaners responsible for the piece destruction!
Max also introduced us to the Liberty idea of "hidden ges" where puzzle pieces can be assembled into two- or three-dimensional puzzles-within-puzzles. For example, this 3D Ferris Wheel is made from pieces of a full-size puzzle. I had to buy it.
Of course there were racks of other puzzles to tempt me as well and, I'll admit, I added a few to my Liberty Puzzle collection. This is not a cheap hobby, but now it comes with a great back story.
After puzzles, we joined Brian at lunch and then walked along Pearl Street in downtown Boulder. I think we do this on every visit, but this time we managed to not buy anything from the eclectic collection of small stores. A nice place to window shop in any event.
The rush-hour drive back to Longmont was slow, but it is a nice drive with the Flatirons and Rockies off to the West and a complex collection of clouds overhead.
After a rest, Marianne and I joined Jen and Brian on a walk along Lefthand Creek. I love the stream's name. We paused at the Compassion Tower, a Japanese-style tower, built to memorialize the WW II internment experience, in the place where some survivors eventually settled and prospered.
We finished our walk with the worst selfie ever and then said goodbye to our Colorado family, promising to not take years again to get together.
On Tuesday, we start a small chapter in Rocky Mountain National Park.
Stay tuned.
John and Marianne