Artwork

I haven’t made any Nepal posts lately because all of my flash drives got misplaced in the last apartment relocation, and one of them has the photos Elizabeth gave me from her trip. Normally they would have made the move in the safety of my purse, but my purse went out to a local repair shop to have its main zipper fixed right around the time of the move, and the flash drives got packed… elsewhere. In a Safe Place somewhere. If they don’t turn up soon, I’ll have to ask Elizabeth to dig up her copies of the pics and resend them so I can wrap up the Nepal saga.

Lost items aside, we love our new home. Technically we’re in Englewood now, just south of Denver. It suits us perfectly, it’s very walkable and charming.

The pandemic has hit the local economy hard. All the small family businesses are a big part of what gives this area its appeal, so we have resolved to support them as much as we are able. Last weekend we took a break from the chaos of moving to visit the Denver Christkindl, an outdoor Christmas market where (mostly) local vendors can sell their holiday wares.

In the spirit of supporting small businesses, we started the day with drinks and sandwiches at our neighborhood coffee shop.

In the background you can see the white bridge/staircase of a light rail station:

Denver has the best light rail system of any city I’ve ever lived in. We definitely want to support that, so we try to use it as much as possible. It’s easier to get to downtown Denver by rail than by car anyway, especially with traffic and the cost of public parking.

After breakfast, we walked to the station.

The C Line to Union Station comes through every 15 minutes.

20 minutes later we rolled into Union Station.

We could have taken the H Line and arrived closer to the Christkindl, but we wanted to walk around downtown and look at the holiday decorations. Denver loves Christmas.

It was the kind of bright high-altitude fall day that’s warm in the sun and cold in the shade. Luke said his head was chilly, so we stopped in a couple of hat shops in Larimer Square. At Pendleton he found a nice wool hat that suits the “railroad baron” aesthetic he has been cultivating of late.

We continued exploring, and found these awesome statues near the Opera House:

We finally saw the Big Blue Bear in person!

Fun fact: downtown Denver has warmed itself with steam since 1880. On cold days you can see it rising out of vents in the ground.

The Christkindl Market is usually right downtown near Larimer Square, but for Covid safety it’s been relocated to the spacious Civic Center Park.

We did our best to support the local vendors. We bought some ornaments and cards and so much food that we had to bring most of it home with us. Since I wasn’t driving, I got to enjoy some hot mulled wine. One stall sold handmade woolen items from Nepal, and Elizabeth found a hat that perfectly matches her Nepali jacket!

We wanted to stay until it got dark enough for all the lights to come on. After we left the Christkindl we walked around admiring the local architecture and art installations.

I love the life-size reindeer and sleigh on the roof of City Hall:

The Capitol Building is beautiful too:

But we had come early in the day, and we ran out of things to look at. And when the sun finally did disappear behind the skyline, it got cold very quickly. We decided to head back to Union Station, and come back another day to see all the lights.

On the way back we stepped into a bookstore and bought a couple of Christmas-themed books. This guy was trippy:

He’s a wax figure, not a live person. Looks super real, though.

Union Station was lit up by the time we got back to it. Denver does love Christmas.

The train home (electric tram, really) was cozy warm. Colorado is nice. We like it here.