Colorado has very large Renaissance Festival every summer. This year is the 38th season that Larkspur has hosted the impressively enormous event. In the morning the highway (I-25) is always backed up in the middle of nowhere near the exit of this tiny little town (the 2012 population was 192). When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I used to make it a point to visit every summer with friends. It's quite a spectacle and people dress in some very interesting, and sometimes materially-challenged costumes. We attended more sporadically after the kids were born, and hadn't been in probably about seven years.
With some family in town visiting, we decided to make the trip down there again this year and check it out. It was still just as remarkable, but I find myself less interested in seeing quite so much skin now that I'm a little older, and have little eyes that I'm responsible for. But Larkspur is still a very beautiful area of the state. Sorry it's not the clearest picture, everyone was ready to go by this point and I only had my camera phone so I had to take a quick snapshot.
I think I probably would have enjoyed myself a little bit more if I hadn't been with some family who have become increasingly uptight about anything that doesn't fit into very traditional norms. So I spent way too much of my time worried about how they'd react to certain things to be able to relax and just enjoy the weirdness.
But the good news is that the family headed home this morning and I've got a great week in front of me. I get to spend time with my immediate family and my mom early in the week. Then my husband and son are going to Glenwood Springs to hike, swim, and just spend time together. So my daughter and I have some uninterrupted mother-daughter time coming up. Then next weekend my cousin and his family will be coming into town for a visit. I truly enjoy their company and am really looking forward to that visit.
This morning I was working from home and my son asked if I would take him to the summer program today. So I walked him to school this morning down the creek that runs behind our house. I saw a family of hawks with squawking babies. I listened to the water running, and watched the early morning sun shining on leaves blowing in the wind. One of my very favorite stories is The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. I enjoy a scary story anytime, but one of the other reasons I like it so well is because his vivid description of the Hudson River Valley in the late 18th century just brings the woods to life. Sometimes when I'm walking along the creek, especially in the fall, I almost feel like I can block out the houses on either side of the creek and imagine that I'm walking along a tributary of the Hudson in the 1790s. Yeah, it's a stretch of the imagination, but it's still a beautiful natural area in the midst of suburbia. Unfortunately I once again only had my camera phone, but still got a few pretty shots.
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| Hawk family |
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| Sunlit path |
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| Bridge and grass |
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