Highlanders

Got up and headed “down the hill” – local vernacular for “going into Denver metro. Ashten had a few hours’ worth of gymnastics practice to do, so we killed a little time in and around Littleton.

Megan and Lauren had found a local beauty college and got haircuts and manicures (on the cheap!) while I explored the area. Colorado enforces pretty significant emissions controls before you can transfer title & tag, so I headed to the local testing center to get the Toyota checked out.

The emissions process was quick but pretty thorough. They connected a massive funnel and tube to the truck’s tailpipe, connected a computer to the truck’s OBC, engaged 4-wheel drive, and put the truck on a front & rear wheel dyno. They ran it through several different speeds up to highway speeds, and then checked the pressurization capacity of the gas cap. The whole process lasted fewer than 10 minutes, but sure seemed to be involved! The truck got a clean bill of health, so we’re cleared to get it transferred over. (We’re doing the process now because we just bought it and have to transfer the title to us. And rather than get an Oklahoma title and pay Oklahoma’s 8.375% sales tax, we’ll pay Colorado’s 4.1%, thank you very much!)

After our morning projects we headed into Larimer Square in downtown Denver for a big chalk art festival. Lots of great local artists working in this really cool section of downtown Denver. Each piece is sponsored by a local shop or vendor, and a local artist chalks the image they and the vendor select.

“Costs more for a smaller space. Lame.”

As we worked our way back home we stopped by Red Rocks in Morrison. This was a CCC project completed in 1938 and is a legendary music venue. We didn’t have a lot of access because Dispatch is on stage tonight. Apparently the show-goers start early, so traffic was already starting to pick up in the area. We did get to a visitor station and take a quick walk to snap a few photos.

“Queen of the world!” pose

Back in Evergreen we grabbed the dog and went for a quick walk along Elk Meadow. We then went back to the house for Highlander burgers on the grill.

This house we’re staying in for the month of June has a lot of beautiful, old pine trees around that tend to drop pine cones on the deck. Ashten started picking them up and throwing them off the deck in an attempt to nail the trashcan across the driveway. Not satisfied with this level of challenge, we put a laundry basket across the driveway and tried tossing the pine cones from the deck and into the basket. Because the shape of the pine cone makes it bounce awkwardly, and because the basket and pine cones are both fairly hard, this proved to be more difficult than it first appeared.

Gathering the ammo

Lauren sank the first basket, and then went up 2-0 against Ashten and me. I tied it 2-2, and then proceeded to thrash the girls by a score of 7 (me) – 2 (Lauren) – 1 (Ashten). When you’re old and pathetic, you have to take great pride in small victories.

Launching salvos

Celebrating the spoils