Taking to the cobblestone streets of Vail, the team of pedicab drivers...are charming, athletic and outgoing, plus unmatched with customer service. From Ford Park to the Grand Hyatt... ..."fun, environmentally friendly and...socially positive..." [One driver] also teaches skiing [and shows off his] dancing and juggling... "I'm a great mushroom hunter. I've been a paid comedian...and I'm the best skier on the mountain." [Another pedicab driver has] other side hustles..."I'm a barista, vocalist, seasoned yogi... - covered bridge, Winter + Spring 2021-22
It's happened to the best of us. You spend all day meticulously stirring...your stovetop cannabutter. You have your granny's...brownie recipe ready to infuse. You're going to be the hero of your book club tonight. Alas...your strainer leaves you with bits of flower in your brownies or...you guessed on the dosing and now everyone in the book club is staring at their hands instead of discussing Eat, Pray, Love. - Westword The Chronicle, 2/2022
A new wave of younger white residents began looking at Curtis Park in the '90s..."gentrification - was a victim of the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis. The RiNo Art District [creation brought] developers... .When we moved into the neighborhood... We didn't want the same-sameness of a planned community, with its glossy, HOA-approved paint over building materials designed to last...decades not centuries... We...loved meeting all the dogs and their owners that walked... ...gentrification...was crossing over... ...new owners [of] a combination living space and [coffee shop] had a mural painted on the wall:...a white woman drinking coffee - sort a symbol of gentrification - facing projects that have been torn down. ...a shock to the system for a neighborhood undergoing significant shifts...not every resident was happy with the rising property values, the greater attention from the city in terms of roads and services, the improvements to the bike lanes... It wasn't the first shock and it wouldn't be the last. ...a nine-building public-housing complex...was partially demolished...taking with it kids who'd no longer be buying candy, the families that didn't need milk or cereal. Some of the affordable housing would be rebuilt, gutted and then removed like much of the rest of the neighborhood... ...it's hard to look long-term when you appear to be losing ground in the shirt term. - Westword, 3/3-9/2022
"Dear America, We have arrived on your doorstep...we were never much for waiting around for invitations. And we night be staying around your town for a while... You probably already know that we talk funny and listen to strange music and eat things you'd probably hire an exterminator to get out of your yard. Often we don't make sense. " They came to our little hovel...National Guard - they...wanted to know who we were. We told them we were the newspaper, the Big City Daily. The Guard moved on.. The...National Guard came by and wanted an accounting of every weapon... Then the...Highway Patrol...came and demanded we turn over our weapons. ...an hour later, they brought them back. With no explanation. - 1 Dead in Attic, C. Rose, 2007
For the first time since perhaps the end of last autumn, this week has seen temperatures rise back into the 60s F. The week's forecast predicts we will hit 70. I remember last month the snow on the ground was such that I was taking my bike on the bus to work in the hope of navigating my way home across the bike trail. On my way home a couple of evenings ago, a trio of twentysomethings passed me on their cruiser bikes. One guy was singing along to what sounded like 1980s pop music. Yesterday, there were suddenly people and dogs and bikes all over the trail. There were traffic jams among patches of snow still melting. One homeless cyclist, minus any helmet, passed me as he said, "This guy looks like he's ready to race." I don't know if he was speaking about myself or the oncoming cyclist, also missing any helmet. Both of them were in knit caps. The homeless guy looked at me and smiled. He was missing a tooth or two. It's Wednesday. The past couple of days I had a ride to work, as I worked open to close. Temps in the 60s F are forecast right up until Saturday. On the way home, this continues to be a week when cyclists have come out of the winter woodwork. Toward the end of my ride home, I'm just off the trail. I've turned down the street with the line of campers parked along an open field. I'm about to turn up a steep hill before I watch a fairly rare sight. A pickup truck with its bed full of tires pulls a homeless RV down the hill, and turns up the street toward the other campers. Twilight is falling and the RV does not appear to have any taillights. It's also leaning forward where it's connected to the hitch. The pickup pulls the RV ever so slowly up the street and through an intersection. Along the steep hill, another homeless camper is parked. This camper has a hitch, to which a trailer is attached. A few minutes later, and I have turned down the long street a block from my own. There are a perpetual handful of campers along this way. One is a camper shell on a small trailer. It's distinctive in that it has an old Spanish 15th century crucifix outside, hanging near one corner. This evening, next to the camper shell are parked a couple of small bicycles. On the opposite curb is a vehicle with its engine running. In the dark is a guy leaning on the edge of the driver's side window. He slowly shuffles his way toward the bikes as I am able to sneak between man and cycles.
Thursday. I got a call yesterday at work from my doctor's office. Out of the blue, someone lets me know that follow up blood work has been scheduled concerning my prostate. I realized that the lab of the clinic down my street opens an hour before I leave for work. I can ride there and back home again before I go to work and I don't have to take all my work stuff to the clinic. I'm coming down a long street a block from my own, on the way to work. It's had a handful of campers at least since the end of the giant homeless death camp of the spring and summer of 2020. Today, the street appears to be void of any homeless mobile dwellings. I have yet to see on this particular street any sweeps of homeless, as I have on other blocks. The exodus appears to have been voluntary. One sign of this is the residual trash left behind. Homeless sweeps are pretty thorough, with hardly a scrap of evidence left. The largest pile of refuse left includes what appears to be an inhabited tent. Among the trash pile is a pair of pontoons, too small for a helicopter. A single homeless guy sits in the pile, eating what appears to be something out of a box. Closer to the end of the street is a smaller trash heap is where a camper shell rested for perhaps a couple of months or more, on top of a small trailer. This was the shell with a medieval crucifix affixed to the outside. Almost as if some kind of statement about feudal living in the 21st century. As the late HunterThompson may have said, powerful mojo. The camper shell is where a pair of bikes were parked last night, as I squeaked between them and a guy leaning on the driver's side window of a pickup on the opposite curb. Perhaps he was discussing decamping from the area with the driver. The high today again is forecast for 68 degrees F, and 63 tomorrow, before more snow arrives Saturday. Sunday, the temp is supposed to be 22 F. Golfers are out on both the golf courses which I pass on the way to work. In a parking lot just past the first course is a couple unloading bicycles from their SUV. There are elderly everywhere on the trail late in the morning. A trio of cyclists on cruiser bikes, all in brightly colored windbreakers. I turn onto the connecting trail. Another elderly couple, this pair on foot, traverse the trail with big walking staffs and weird leather hats with brims. They look like Middle Earth retirees. On my way home after work, climbing the steep hill just off the trail, I notice that the camper with the trailer hitched behind it is still there.
Friday. I'm off to the gym before work today, instead of after work tomorrow, because there is snow in tomorrow's forecast. I'm on the way to work, turning onto the block with the campers along an open field. The very first homeless dwelling at the corner is a big RV. Tied over the rear bumper is a mirror, in which I stop to take a shot of my reflection. In my new windbreaker! Tomorrow will be winter coat weather. On the sidewalk is a guy washing his long hair. Soon I'm out on the trail and off again, and at the gym. A middle-aged woman inside is telling someone about seeing people walking their dogs "all day long," corroborating my own experience to and from work. Afterward, I'm back out on the connecting trail. Climbing up from an approaching underpass are a couple of elderly guys. Together they take up both lanes of the trail. The one in the oncoming lane has a ski pole. The other is in my lane and is blowing his nose before he eventually moves over. Beyond these guys is a middle-aged guy on a bike coming toward me. There's something odd about his being without a helmet, together with black and white camouflaged pants. I'm dead tired by the end of my work day. I got to bed late last night. I take the transit system home. Overnight I get more than eight hours of sleep. I back out on the trail to work early the next morning. Some time after 6 AM I'm riding along the long line of trees between trail and river bank. A few lakes fell a couple of hours ago, and the sun is already coming up as we approach another equinox. The air feels damp and fresh. Ahead, I spot two shopping carts overflowing with crap. A homeless couple is at least pretending to be in the process of moving them. I'm about to pass them as the guy, a short dude with a familiar weathered face, tells me I'm "good." I must turn off the trail onto the mud. I reply with a "Yeah," as I contemplate my status as 'good' while traversing mud. The female replies to my 'yeah' with, "Why the fuck is everyone so grumpy today? Cheer up, grumpy." Thank you, Dr. Phil. I answer her with, "I'm good on the mud." The guy also has a tiny BMX bike. He can't be attempting to pull the shopping cart with this tiny bike, can he? No wonder they haven't gone anywhere. After work, I decide to ride to the train and take it to a bus home, to grab some time to get grocery shopping done. The train takes me over the December Christmas tree lot. There has been a camper parked in the lot, behind a couple of trailers, for perhaps a couple of years. I see this afternoon that it's suddenly gone.
Van life, once a niche experience for die-hard nomads, has taken root in communities across Colorado and the U.S.... ...the U.S. Census Bureau counted...vans, RVs of boats as housing units, up from...2016. AS van life communities grow, it's hard to paint them with a single brush-stroke. ...the reality of van life differs from its portrayal on Instagram. ..."these extremes...the outcasts of society and those pushed to the fringes." ...suspicious looks and the occasional question by police, even where [parked] legally... Much of [the mobile home] business came after the beginning of the...pandemic. ...with May 2020 seeing 10 times the amount of inquiries [in mobile home manufacturing. Between March and September of that year, the homeless RV death camp grew to a gathering of 100 people living in RVs, mobile homes, campers, trailers, tents, and camper shells.] "That...shift in paradigm...allowed people to pursue this lifestyle." "I was just ready to minimize, have my whole life in one lace." With...solar panels on the roof... ..."you can live with a lot less than you think. ...the freedom to move your home to wherever you want..." - Denver Herald, 3/3/2022
Monday. It snowed through yesterday. Not much, but I take the transit system to work hoping the sun will melt off any frozen patches by the time I head home. I'm at the station where I catch my last bus to work. I have a good 45-minute wait and I finish a handful of free local magazines I picked up yesterday. I used to get them all the time at a diner, where I used to do my ritual pre-grocery shopping breakfast every Sunday. It closed down and finally reopened as a Mexican place. I stopped in for the first time yesterday for dinner, Sunday afternoons or evenings appear to be when I do the shopping now. Crazy life in flux. I hear the world reply, "Tell me about it." This morning at the station, I hear someone yell once, from the direction of a parking garage next to the train platform. The next thing I know, two city police officers each have an arm of a twentysomething. They put him into one of two police cars. A third car arrives and a woman gets out. She talks to one of the officers. Then the car with the guy, both officers and the woman are gone, leaving the single remaining police car and the woman's vehicle. We're on the campus of a private college, across town from my neighborhood, where he's more likely to end up shot instead of in handcuffs. That evening, when I'm home from work, I go to bed. Trying to go to sleep, I feel as though I have an unsettled stomach, which I will later identify as hunger pangs. I'm up all night with diarrhea. Of course I decide to spent the next day at work. The boss gives me a ride to a supermarket where I pick up some medicine and fluids. The medicine will prove to be useless in even slowing down the pure water coming, this month, from my butt every hour. I get home for more of the same. When I go to bed, there's no more of it. I wake up the following morning feeling as if it never happened. Except of course for the poop on my sheets and on a small throw rug. I'm on the way to work, approaching the street with the campers along the open field. Before the corner, there are now more campers along the intersecting road. I'm off the bike for one day and all hell breaks loose. Hey, I recognize a homeless vehicle I haven't seen since i can't remember when. It's the not-so-old guy's minivan. And in front of it is the Turkey Time camper! What's up guys? In the morning, a smattering of flakes drift down. They do so until an hour before I leave work. In that last hour, the flakes get bigger and the asphalt disappears. And it gets closer to the time for a bus home to arrive. I may as well take it. Though the snow feels as though it has a bite for my tired, I don't know if it will suddenly dump on me along the way home.
The next morning, it's 0 degrees F. And the temps are not expected to rise above freezing. OK. I'll leave the bike home today. Something about the snow has brought out the crazies today. On my first bus to work is a guy staring motionless, expressionless, and singing out loud for no apparent reason. Until he stops for no apparent reason. When he stops, I look at him. He looks at me with a blank stare. At the train station are a crew of security waiting to board their trains, and check fares. The railroad dicks of 2022. In the distance, I watch one crazy hop over three lanes of tracks as one train approaches. I mention it to one security person who agrees he's crazy. She and I board a train car. Last month, I listened to a podcast about how these trains are never full. This morning, they're more full than empty. The officer is checking fares when someone comes up short. ...and this officer ain't playin'. "No fare? Go on out. Let's go. We don't have all day," she says. When closing time comes around at work...the streets have melted significantly. I may have been able to ride home, but I'm not going to quibble. The following day I ride on into work. I leave early, grab a couple of grocery items along with breakfast, and stop at the gym along the way. Now i won't have to do any of this tomorrow...or Sunday. While I'm there, I see the same guy walk the same way through the parking lot two times. He's bundled up and carrying on his back some kind of travel case. The collar on his jacket is a distinctive lime green. I'm coming home after work on a Saturday, climbing the hill off the street with campers along an open field. The camper with another trailer hitched to the back has moved a few yards downhill, on the other side of an entrance to an alley. The rear left wheel has a kind of wheel block made out of wood, to keep it from rolling downhill.
Sunday. In the afternoon I have an early dinner before grocery shopping. I'm at the location of a former grill where I used to have breakfast, every Sunday before grocery shopping. That place is long gone. Last week was the first time I had a chance to visit the new establishment here, a Mexican restaurant. This afternoon, there's laughter and singing inside. A lot of life. I'm not sure the hostess speaks English. It's good to see this in an era when so many beloved eateries are folding up shop. On Monday after work, I'm again climbing the hill off the block with homeless campers along an open field. One homeless camper is coming down the hill and turns toward the others. The following evening, I will see the Turkey Time camper at the crest of this hill. Tuesday morning, I'm off the trail on the way to work. I decide I want a candy bar. I stop at a gas station across from a big bank building. I come out and begin eating the candy bar when I hear yelling from the doorway of the bank entrance. It's a homeless guy. He's yelling at me to "get out of" his "apartment!" Then he accuses me of accusing him of being "someone with an aneurysm." I move to the corner. He leaves the bank and comes down the sidewalk toward me. I move out into a turn lane on the busy boulevard. He goes back to the doorway. I cross the street and turn onto the sidewalk parallel with his side of the street. He continues to stare at me. I point at him. He stares in silence with his mouth open. I point again. His expression does not change. The day reaches 69 degrees F. On the way home, there more bicycles out on the trail than in a parade. Bikes, people walking dogs, homeless cyclists. One guy is coming at me head on in the wrong lane. Another guy is on rollerblades. For the first time since the middle of last year, I'm riding home in a T-shirt and shorts.
The forecast for today is in the 50s F, dropping to 32 just as I'm leaving work, just in time for more precipitation. I pack my winter jacket and don the snow boots. I'm out of the door and soon on the long downhill street, toward the block with campers along an open field. At least since last week, a good section of this downhill road has as many campers as the intersecting block. Yesterday, one of those campers was a hollowed out empty shell, parked along the field. For some reason and with some method, it's been transported to the crest of this hill. In the distance I spot a homeless guy, a couple of decades my junior. He's on a 3-wheeled ATV pulling a trailer full of crap. He's blocking my lane, and an oncoming vehicle is approaching in the opposite lane. And, a pickup has just passed me. It slows to wait for the guy to ride the ATV to an empty spot along the curb. Out of the camper in front of him comes one woman, followed by a middle-aged woman in a thin chartreuse kind of housecoat. She tosses something into the weeds. At the front end of the next camper, a guy in a sports jersey hovers. After work, when I get home, I have an email from an old friend downtown. It's a business. It's the place where I would purchase my bikes and take them for repair some year ago. The place has been around for 50 years, and is going out f business. During the pandemic, they were open for appointment only. When I briefly worked downtown, between the very end of 2018 and early 2020, I suddenly noticed more than one new bike shop on the block. I wondered if they were going to make it.
On Friday, with the time change at the beginning of the week, I decide to sneak in my workout right after work and take the train along the way home. I was called in early this morning and got a ride. So I don't get a chance to see the long incline with its collection of homeless campers, with its residents out and about the morning before. Saturday is another early morning commute to work. I'm coming down the long incline mentioned above. This morning, it's completely devoid of campers, trailers, and other homeless dwellings. I don't see a speck of trash. I suspect the block has been swept. The homeless on this particular block showed up fast, and they left just as fast. Just around the corner, where the campers stay for much longer periods of time, the dwellings appear to all be newly arrived. Inside of two hours later, I'm at the shopping center where I work. I'm having breakfast at a pancake house. All waitresses are different. This one asks me if I want any vegetables in the side of eggs I order. Sure. I then notice that she's sitting at a table with someone. I assume he's another employee. When he leaves, I notice her sit down with a couple who came into eat. (?) I've never seen this before. When she brings my check, she gives me a pen which doesn't work.
Owning my own business was absolutely terrifying to think about... ...preparing...brand new staff... ...it wasn't going to happen. ...for at least two months. ...I didn't have any answers for them. We were at the mercy of science... I hadn't not had a job in over fifteen years... I...thought...bartending would [survive] the apocalypse. ...the entire industry...shut down. ...this was my calling... ...one month. Holy sht. To a new establishment, that was it. Board up the doors... ...walk me through...how to breathe. ...to watch our young minds deal with irrational adults... - Westword, 3/17-23/2022
Monday. I'm on the way to work, coming down the long incline. Once again, three homeless dwellings are back along the curb. I turn the corner onto the block with the latest campers and shells along the open field. Tiny flakes are blowing down. A police cruiser is silently inching along the line of dwellings. Its lights are on. The officer is having a look. It's the first police I've seen at a homeless camp when a sweep is not in progress. The following morning, an unmarked police cruiser is parked at the opposite curb. Someone (the officer?) is speaking to the driver of a small car stopped ahead of me. The ride home from work takes me though a nonstop headwind. My visor comes loose and I remove it. For some reason, I'm hungry when I get home. Both Chinese places next to me are closed. I don't know what it is about Tuesdays and Chinese restaurants. I head over to the Vietnamese place behind where I live. It's about half Vietnamese families and half Caucasian university weirdo hipsters in knit hats. I sit next to a pair of white women. The older one is droning on in a monotone analysis of the significance of her life. On Wednesday, I'm on the connecting trail to work, passing under a couple of overpasses. It's a popular spot for homeless. One of them is in a bright purple wool coat, and they are banging on the frame of an overturned bicycle. I can think of no reason to do so. A different homeless person will be at this same spot, next to the same overturned bike, on my way home after work. Perhaps an hour later, I'm climbing the hill p from the block with the campers along the pen field. Gone is the camper with the trailer hitched to the rear. At the opposite curb at the crest of the hill are a small camper and a trailer. From inside one of them, I hear a male voice say, "I'm not getting high."
This week's warmer spring temperatures has seen an addition of characters to an already crowded trail during my ride home on Thursday. As a stranger at my gym remarked, there are already those who "walk their dogs all day long." Right on cue, a parade of cyclists has returned. One is a guy with no helmet who twice waved hello to me earlier in the week on my way to work. When I connect with the trail along the river his afternoon, I spot the first kayak I've seen this year. One long guy has shown up just a few days into the Spring. And this afternoon makes it official. More than one cyclist, complete with motorcycle helmet, is racing his electric bike simply using the motor. Along the first golf course on the way home, an oncoming rollerblading couple skates past me. I'm passed by more than one cyclist. One is a kid on a BMX bike. I take an underpass as he exits the trail, only to cross through an intersection and come down a ramp back on. He hightails it ahead of me. When I catch up to him, he's on the side of the road next to the trail. He's obviously just conversed with the driver of a car which then pulls away as he again speeds ahead. The following day is another Saturday, and another early ride to work. I'm coming downhill on a long residential street. The dawn is just breaking shortly after AM. At one corner before the long slope is a homeless woman on a small bike. She may be 70. Her expression is blank as she raises a cigarette to her lips. A few blocks ahead, the street was recently swept of campers. There are a pair of newly arrived ones here this morning. Just around the corner however, where late Thursday afternoon there be a mighty line of homeless RVs and campers, there is now only a lone camper shell and a small camper with a small car in front of that. And piles of trash.
On Sunday, I'm at the stop on my corner, for the bus to the supermarket. A guy comes along to ask me which direction is south. (Well, see the Rockies behind us? That's what you call your west...) The bus arrives, and before I can step on, a guy comes out. He's thirtysomething and in a grey polo shirt, has sunglasses on in an overcast morning, and is bald with tattoos on his neck and arm. He prefers that I wait until a stooped and elderly woman pulls her collapsible shopping cart off the bus. He's apparently a supervisor keeping an eye on the driver, who is possibly new. The driver and super, a woman and a sleeping drunk in the bacs are all of the other people on the bus. None of them are wearing masks. I look behind me at the back door. A sign asks passengers to indeed wear masks onboard. We are rolling past a stop when the super tells the driver, "You went by the shelter bro." We are just blocks from a transfer station. The driver asks which gate he's supposed to pull into. "Gate A bro," replies the super. "That's in your book from the first day. Wherever the bus (onboard computer) tells you to go." We pull in, I step out, and I watch a long grey-haired guy with a sleeping bag over his shoulder. He contemplates crossing the middle of the boulevard before deciding to use the intersection. He has a green light.
Tuesday, and I'm off again. This time for the dentist. I've had varied and extensive dental work through the years. Today will be my first extractions. One tooth has had two root canals and is reinfected. That one is doomed. I became so convinced in a one-minute conversation with my 20-year-old-looking dentist. And two teeth away is a buried wisdom which threatens the tooth in between. So, I may as well get it out at the same time. This morning, I take the transit system the short distance to the main health campus downtown. I won this race with Medicaid, myself trying to get this done before Medicaid was taken away, and they in the process of deciding if and when to deny it to me. I'm sure that "if" is not a question. I'm called back to a small room. I sit in what appears to be a lounge chair, not even a dental chair. A couple of assistants come in, followed by a dental resident. Another resident. Well, you know what? I got no complaints about residents. A grey-haired dentist sticks his head in the small room. (My dental surgeon's supervisor?) He thanks me for coming in early. (?) "We aren't early," he tells me. I like a dental staff who doesn't need much from a patient to be satisfied. This resident verifies what another dental surgeon told me, and I mention this to him. He tells me the surgeon I spoke with was also a resident, the one he replaced. I'm meeting more doctors on Medicaid than I have in all my previous years going to the dentist. He tells me he's already had a busy morning. And it's only 9 AM. He hits me up with local medicine, waits for just a few minutes, and gets right to work. It strikes me that he's doing a lot of digging, especially to get the wisdom out. Oh shizzle, this can only hurt when the medicine wears off. In 45 minutes, he's done. I'm out with a prescription for some heavy-duty pills in case the over-the-counter stuff ain't enough. Three hours later, I decide to use the over-the-counter stuff, which appears to do the trick. For now. The guy told me that day 3 will be the most painful. I really hope I can go back to work tomorrow. I don't like this staying home from work stuff.
Wednesday. I'm back out again and on my way to work. I'm coming down the long incline, the street upon which one lone camper remains. I turn the corner onto the block next to the open field. Yep, it's been swept of campers. No trash, no more nothing. Wow. No campers along the street a block from mine, no more currently along this one, and a single one along the way. Dare I say it, spring cleaning? The following morning, on the way to work, I look back toward the direction of my own boulevard. I'm looking down the long street a block from my own. Across the boulevard is a camper. But none on this side. Down along the block which has been most recently swept, I watch a lone guy coming my way. His right hand is on the left grip of a bicycle. His left hand pulls a stolen shopping cart. The cart has perhaps three car tires inside, and one under it. After work, I'm up the hill from here and around a corner, and approaching a corner just as a grimy grey camper with orange trim pulls up. Hitched to the back is a pop-up tent which has been converted to a cargo trailer, also with orange trim. It parks and a couple gets out. I hear a young male voice tell the female, "You don't even have flashers on." When I turn and glance back , I see the hood up. I wonder if any of them know that tomorrow is April Fools' Day?
