Winter Wind on the Mesa

Here's another sculpture you can experience in downtown Golden.  Winter Wind on the Mesa, by artist Marie Barbera, was placed on the Clear Creek Trail in 2004.  It honors the Native American people who called the region home, primarily the Arapahoe, Ute and Cheyenne.  You'll find this piece on just east of the Washington Street bridge on the Clear Creek Trail.

Alamo Drafthouse Littleton

I love movies.  Look over at the sidebar, you'll see that my other blogging and podcasting endeavors are all focused on movies.  However, I rarely get to actually go to the theater.  Yesterday, though was an exception.  I was due to appear on a podcast discussing the new Pixar film Onward, so I had to venture out to the theater for the first time in about two and a half months.  We have many theater options in the area, but yesterday I decided to visit our local Alamo Drafthouse.

We now have three Alamo Drafthouse locations in the Denver area.  There is one in Denver near Sloan's Lake and one in Westminster, but the one in Littleton was our first, opening about seven years ago.  The Alamo Drafthouse is well known to movie fans for being a theater that has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to noise and rude behavior.  You light up your phone during the flick, you're out of there!  I whole-heartedly approve of this policy!  The theater is also known for doing special screenings of older films.  My son and I have taken in a Shaw Brothers kung fu movie at the theater in the past.  It truly is a theater aimed at movie lovers.

The location in Littleton features some strange decor in the lobby, featuring an abominable snowman hanging out of the ceiling.  Not sure what the motivation was for this, but I can get behind it. 

There are a few things I don't care for as much about Alamo.  They put a lot of emphasis on their food.  It's not just popcorn and Milk Duds.  This means that the seats all have a large table attached, which somewhat gets in the way for me.  It also means that often servers are duck walking through your aisle to fill orders and such.  For a theater that puts so much emphasis on respecting the movies, I find this to be the opposite of their goals.  Still, there aren't many other theaters that beat the experience that Alamo offers.  I have yet to visit their other Denver area locations but hope to at some point.  The Sloan's Lake location hosts Denver's Silent Film Festival, which is coming up in just a few weeks.  Perhaps I'll be able to catch a screening or two this year.

Stanley Marketplace - Maria Empanada

This morning my daughter had an interview in a part of town that she's not familiar with.  The interview was enough of a stress by itself, so I did the good dad thing and offered to drive her.  That meant I had some time to kill while waiting for her, so I decided to grab some breakfast over at the Stanley Marketplace in Aurora.

The Stanley Marketplace is home to over 50 businesses, including several interesting eateries.  Once upon a time, the building was a manufacturing facility for Stanley Aviation.  The facility opened in 1954, right next to Denver's original airport.  It was once the largest employer in Aurora.  Among the innovative products created here were ejection seats for planes and an escape capsule which was tested with the aid of, believe it or not, bears on loan from the Denver Zoo!?  Many reminders of the building's past as a manufacturing plant remain, including the sign pictured above celebrating the union the workers belonged to.

The airplane parts are now long gone, but plenty of tasty food has shown up instead.  As it was early in the morning, I decided to sample a breakfast empanada at Maria Empanada.  For all the Latin American delicacies we have in this part of the country, I must admit my shame that I have never sampled an empanada before.  It was pretty dang tasty. 

The Stanley Marketplace is a great gathering place, with many more offerings that I just didn't have time to sample this morning.  A return trip will be on the horizon.