Only for a night, but our camping trip was a nice change from the hectic cities we’ve visited over the past few months.

Only 120 miles from Denver you can find endless plains, open interstates, and trucks that are actually used for hauling hay and farming equipment. The blue skies give way to dark clouds and rain, and a shift in the wind brings back the blue, over and over throughout the day. The most scenic sight is what’s NOT there: No garish big box stores, no long string of family chain restaurant with their identifiable red neon stripe, and very little else except for the occasional sound of the trains rushing by.

Each time I drive north of Denver I’m shocked at the extreme pace of development. 10 years ago when I moved here the area north of 120th Street in Denver was nothing but farmland all the way up to Fort Collins.

Now when I take a trip north I see the former fields and prairies succumbed to seas of asphalt parking lots. The car dealerships, monotonous chain restaurants, and the typical big box stores are planted in the center, as if they fell that way completed from the sky.

Fortunately the rapid sprawl gives way to wide open spaces north of Fort Collins. Crossing the border into Wyoming at highway 287 you’re greeted with liquor stores and beat up pick up trucks that actually are used on farms hauling supplies.

About 20 miles north of Colorado at interstate 80 is Laramie, where we picked up some hot dogs, firewood, and last minute supplies for our camping trip. Vedauwoo is about 15 miles east of Laramie on 80, and is a large area of land with amazing rock formations, making it a destination for climbers.

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13558960

AUSTIN, Texas - Wander through any major European city and you’re bound to stumble upon dozens of hostels, their doorways crowded with rucksacks and chatting, laughing backpackers.
The cheap, dormitory-style lodging and lively social scene are fixtures for European travelers on a budget. Hostel life abroad has been chronicled in books and movies, with tales of free-spirited youths and their devil-may-care attitudes.
But they’ve never quite caught on across the Atlantic. Numbering about 10,000 worldwide, there are only about 350 hostels in the U.S., according to Hostelling International-USA. The few available suffer from a lukewarm reputation, a transportation system that doesn’t favor backpackers and — perhaps the most fatal flaw — anonymity.

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I read the Craigslist Travel Board frequently - and always answer replies questions about our wonderful city of Denver. Here’s my quick replies about fun stuff to do when here:

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Tattered cover bookstore - (one downtown on 16th street, as cherry creek is moving) - the new one at Colfax and Columbine is open!

walk or bike around platte park area, at the way west end of 16th street mall.

Bodyworlds is at the Denver Museum til 7/23 - may or may not be your thing but I just saw it and loved it
www.dmns.org/main/en/

Rent bikes and do the Cherry Creek - pics
Trail, platte river trail - better yet get a bike overnight and do an evening ride when cooler.

Bike or walk or drive 7th avenue between Downing and east to Monaco, and up to 20th and back - awesome old mansions and houses - and some small neighborhood shops along the way.

16th Street Mall - of course - big pedestrian mall - movie theatre at Pavilions if really hot

Do thrift and vintage stores on south broadway between 6th and I-25 - Cool retro shops and really cool used bookstores - and further south on broadway some great antique stores - and Mayan theatre has indy movies

Mile Hi (huge) Flea Market on Saturday or Sunday, again may or may not be your thing but different.

other cities: Golden and Boulder - Boulder’s easy to get to via express bus from downtown

Oh - Esquire theatre at 6th and Downing has midnight movies - like 80s flicks or old horror movies - it’s ok to talk and have fun -like a big party.

again that’s MY interests - but they’re all pretty genuine to Denver and the various neighborhoods,

oh best idea - pick up a Westword (or westword.com) on Thursday’s - list different events for the week

have fun - enjoy the city. be sure to get outdoors from 6-9pm - not as hot and beautiful sunsets from the city

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Biking to work today, (which coincidentally happened to be Bike to Work day), I saw a little sparrow in the gutter. I expected him to flutter away, but when he didn’t move I pulled over and checked on him.

His legs were splayed, and he was on his belly. Hit by a car perhaps? Or abandoned? I considered letting him go by the nearby creek, but unfortunately he wouldn’t have a fair chance on the food chain.

I tucked him into my bike trunk, where he rode atop my lunch en route to work. I gave him some bread crumbs and a bottle cap full of water. I kept him in my bike trunk for the day, but he did manage to fly around my office a bit when I checked on him, so I knew he would be ok with a fixed up leg.

Wondering who could help such a small bird, my Google abilities immediately found the “Wild Bird Rehabilitation Center” near Evans and Holly Street. A complete volunteer rescue/rehabilitation place right on the way home! To fix a splayed leg, some nutrients and calcium are given via shots and food, and within a few days they are stronger, able to stand up, and soon ready to head off into the city. (Although the nice people there told me many birds released end up hanging around their place).

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http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_3974750

Auto racing is the least of my interests but this article has some sad parallels for those of us, (like myself), who fly from country airports in the outskirts of cities, and the consequences of development.
Are outlying towns in such dire straights that they’ll allow people to buy or build homes, then dictate to the natives what businesses they can and can’t run? The business that’s been there decades must be literally steamrolled over for the super cash engines of Wal-Marts and Best Buys?

Seems pretty simple that if you buy a house next to a racetrack, you should EXPECT TO BE LIVING NEXT TO A RACETRACK!

Having just driven back from camping in Wyoming I see the multitude of big box stores rapidly completed and dropped into a sea of asphalt as if they fell from the sky that way. I love living in an economically prosperous state, but it’s sad that 10 years ago the city in this article was considered “country”, and now I have to travel 100 miles north of Denver and west to Wyoming to truly be void of sprawl… How could anyone be proud of living in Dacono after it’s graded and enveloped by car dealerships, warehouse stores, and obligatory endless row of chain restaurants? Where’s the local activists?

Left in growth’s dust
Racetracks often face losing battle when in path of development

By Andy Vuong
Denver Post Staff Writer
Dacono, Colorado
On any given summer Saturday night, up to 8,400 people - double the population of this small farming town 30 miles north of Denver - gather at Colorado National Speedway to enjoy the full-throttle action of stock car racing.

But the action may screech to a halt because the 3/8-mile paved oval track, a fixture here for more than 40 years, is in the path of the town’s growth.

A 145-lot residential community recently crept its way onto the crest of a hill about a mile south of the racetrack. On nearby Frontage Road, the main traffic artery between the track and Interstate 25, a Furniture Row shopping center is slated to open in the coming weeks.

“Speculation has run rampant as to if, or when, that track may give way to development,” said Jerry Van Dyke, chairman of the board of the Colorado Motorsports Hall of Fame, based in Aurora.

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This guy has become really popular on the net and the talk shows for recorded call attempting to cancel AOL. Not surprising as almost everyone has had the same experience.

His story, and call here: http://media.putfile.com/AOL-Cancellation

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Because if you move the problem to your peripheral view, the problem ceases to exist…

Proposed Plan Would Limit Orlando Homeless Feedings

http://www.local6.com/news/9392346/detail.html

The Orlando City Council discussed a controversial plan to limit who can feed the homeless and how often, according to a Local 6 News report. Each week, several groups travel to Lake Eola in Orlando to provide food for the homeless. However, the feeding sessions have some local businesses and residents concerned that they can lead to a spike in crime.

City Commissioner Patty Sheehan proposed the bill.

Sheehan said the issue has become one-sided against her and she simply has the interest of all parties at heart, Local 6 reporter Chris Trenkmann said. “City Commissioner Patty Sheehan has become known as the commissioner for the dogs because she helped pass a state law allowing dogs to eat at restaurants outdoors,” Local 6 reporter Chris Trenkmann said. “But, now she is being criticized for not allowing the homeless to eat.”

“I mean I just really feel like I have not been treated very fairly on this,” Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan said. “I want to help people, but proper place, proper time. And if we are willing to provide a location and this group doesn’t want to use it because it is not pretty enough — huh.”

Sheehan has proposed moving the feedings to Lake Eola to Silvia Street. But, businesses in the area are not happy about the idea, Trenkmann said.

A group of supporters for the homeless gathered in downtown Orlando Monday who say they have a right to have the feedings at Lake Eola.

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Unless this is constantly being replaced, this tree branch, stuck into the top of a plastic trash can, (most likely from the 7-11 half a block away), is actually GROWING!

Or perhaps it’s just the blooming foliage that makes it look more lush. Whatever it’s magic is it’s been there since January and still going strong, despite some raucous windstorms too.

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Bush Apologizes to L.A. Times Reporter

By NEDRA PICKLER Associated Press Writer.

President Bush who often teases members of the press corps, apologized Wednesday after he poked fun at a reporter for wearing sunglasses without realizing they were needed for vision loss. The exchange occurred at a news conference in the Rose Garden. Bush called on Los Angeles Times reporter Peter Wallsten and asked if he was going to ask his question with his “shades” on. For the viewers, there’s no sun,” Bush said to the television cameras.”

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Here is a compilation of my spanish notes over the past few months, and some useful links for practicing.

Long vocabulary lists

Simple grammer web site

Wikipedia site

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How could a study consisting of only 148 people yield such credible results it’s reported around the world? Speaking of things I love - this site combines two of my favorites: biking and coffee.

Coffee? Why, yes By Melissa Healy, Times Staff Writer
June 12, 2006

CAFFEINE has long been known to make the heart beat faster, the muscles work harder and the brain focus better. But a new study suggests that it also makes us more open to persuasion when confronted with a point of view that is logical and well-argued. At the University of Queensland in Australia, researchers ascertained the positions of 148 people on the subject of voluntary euthanasia, then asked each participant to read a position paper that ran counter to his or her beliefs. Before reading the papers, however, half drank orange juice containing the equivalent jolt of two cups of coffee, and half drank plain orange juice.

The results: Compared with subjects who had downed the unfortified OJ, the subjects who drank the juiced-up orange drink understood and remembered the counter-arguments better and were more in agreement with those arguments. What’s more, their changed views were unlikely to revert to earlier beliefs later on, when they were asked to read position papers consistent with their original viewpoints.

Pearl Martin, the social psychologist who oversaw the experiments, said subjects hopped up on caffeine paid better attention to well-made arguments and thus appeared better disposed to their logic.

But the nation’s taste for caffeinated drinks should not make us a nation of dupes. “Our research findings suggest that it increases peoples’ ability to correctly evaluate the merits of a particular argument,” said Martin, speaking of caffeine’s effects.

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Finally have these all compiled from May

Travel Journal Here - and pics of the incredible underground lakes and rivers, and the old city of Merida, original home of the Mayan people. Includes Merida, Playa del Carmen, Puerto Morales, and Valladolid. More Photos: Merida . Chichen Itza . Playa del Carmen

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Hey look MTV’s “The Real World” is in Denver. According to Colin Mahan of TV.com Denver is a “mountain town ringed by the Rocky’s” I wish…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver

And of course the “real” location product placement the comes with it according to this Denver Post article and this Yahoo article

This blog, www.getrealdenver.com, set up by the Denver Post, aims to publicize the details that arise during production, before they go through the rigorous editing to become the almost phony final product), much to the chagrin of the Real World producers.

“Is it ‘real’ when the production company pays a club owner thousands of dollars in advance to guarantee cast members a seat at the bar? Virtually everyone that cast members interact with must sign a nondisclosure agreement to keep the genie in the bottle until the show airs. How real is that? MTV is using our town as a backdrop to sell ads and build brand awareness, so we’re going to use them to reveal the real world behind The Real World.”

A recent Westword article does a much better job at addressing this:

Having spent a little time on the provincial East Coast, I can tell you this: The young moroncy out there has two conceptions of Denver. The first is that we are located in the dead center of the mountains and can ski to school. The second is that we are a Podunk cowtown and we ride horses to school. By having The Real World cast frolic about LoDo, we can correct these misconceptions and show America — nay, the world — that we, too, are home to the sort of overpriced-hair-gel, show-us-your-tits debauchery that the driveling, lemming-like youth of this country have been taught they should desire.

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Walking around Playa del Carmen, a few blocks from Quintana Ave, (5th Street), on a hot May afternoon.

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Mike Littwin’s Rocky Mountain News Column: Simple and to the point

New Craigslist Best ofs –

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/bos/168265652.html

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/lax/167799119.html

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Garden of the Gods . Colorado Springs, CO

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