Just another Saturday in Castle Rock

Not content to stay at home, but not feeling up to driving anywhere there might be traffic, or flooding, or flooding with traffic... (we hear the rain may be done for a while, by the way), last weekend's "trip" was just to downtown Castle Rock.

A little street festival action at Festival Park...

 It was supposed to be the "Ducky Derby"--where the local Rotary Club sells numbers and then throws hundreds of ducks with numbers on them into the creek--however, the creek is so high that this is the only duck sighted..

 A local "all girl" band warming up...too bad The Girl wasn't with us.

 Resting...Just before this we ran into our neighbor ,who not only owns a local plumbing company, but had one of his teenage sons, dressed as a plumber, in a dunk tank, with donations to the local women's shelter gaining participants three tries.  The Boy dunked him in one try, then cackled hysterically as neighbor boy doused us all with a squirt gun....We didn't stay to ride the golf cart train, because, well, after you've ridden it around the neighborhood a million times, why ride it at the festival?

We ended our morning out with a late brunch at Pegasus on the Square (yummy)--The Boy had his usual (gyro sandwich)... mmm, tasty...and then we headed home to transplant some more plants, dry some out ,and water others...ah, the life of a (sub) urban farmer....

Throwback Saturday...

Last weekend while we were out driving around last Saturday we reminisced that Bishop Castle had a lot in common with a sketchy place we stopped to use the bathroom on a trip to Arizona many years ago.  (Maybe just the state of the restroom facilities...both were sketchy, at best).

Let me transport you to 11/30/2008.....

This place is somewhere in Arizona, we think...although it could be in New Mexico...we could find out (I think) if you really want to know.  We stopped at this place primarily because ,well, some of us had to use the restroom, and secondly because it has dinosaurs--who can say no to animatronic dinosaurs?

The highlight (and often quoted) of the stop was when The Girl (age 7) saw this beautiful blob of glass and asked us to buy it.  Mr. IM replied with something like "no"...to which The Girl asked "Can we steal it?" (According to Mr IM, the price tag said something like $2000, yes, two thousand dollars)

Mr IM also had this photo as his profile picture for quite a while--keep in mind that the ostriches do bite...

In both cases we survived the restroom facilities and had a good time giggling afterwards....

Flowers are pretty...

This summer and fall there is a Dale Chihuly exhibit at the Denver Botanical Gardens.  The kids and I saw an exhibit, years ago, at the Indianapolis Children's Museum, and more recently IM and The Girl watched a PBS special about Chihuly.  We had time last Saturday so we took a little trip up there to see it (and because I'm the only family member who has ever visited the Botanic Gardens!).  We ended up parking across the street from the Gardens, in the parking lot of the park where the "end of the year picnic" for Fresh Start Alternative School was always held.  I worked for Fresh Start for several years in the late 90's and early 00's so that was a nice trip down memory lane to start the day.





We're planning to go back in the fall, when the "light up" features are turned on.  We're looking forward to it!