First Friday (and the weekend after)

Westword recently named a strip of Tennyson Street, not too far from our house, Denver's best neighborhood shopping district for 2011. I've not done extensive research or anything but I can't disagree with them. We love living somewhere that has restaurants and shops that are within easy walking distance. One great thing about the neighborhood is the Tennyson Street Art Walk on the first friday evening of every month. Kari and I both grew up in Park Hill and occasionally (like when we go to Oblio's) miss aspects of that area. Frist Fridays are a great reminder of the wonderful, unique and sometimes quirky aspects of this neighborhood and why we love living here.

As you can see in this video, LT was very excited about First Friday - he talked about it all day. I think his favorite parts are the brownies at Tenn Street Coffee and the sidewalk chalk at the framing place next door.

I always look forward to First Fridays but this one was a little bittersweet because it meant that the previous month's artwork at Tenn Street Coffee, which included some of my photographs, had just come done to make way for the April show. Hopefully that won't be the last time I get to try and peddle some of my work, however, and the fact that there are places like the coffee shop that give a local rank amateur like myself a place on the wall alongside real artists is one of the things that make Tennyson Street so great.

About half a block south of Tenn Street is one of many medical marijuana dispensaries in the area. This one had a couple of old guys out playing DJ for everyone walking past. Westword called the area "semi-gentrified" which is probably accurate but I'm not sure where this place falls on the gentrification scale. I mean, the ghetto homemade banner over the porch, the dead lawn, the tie-dye flag, the half working 'open' neon sign, and the general disrepair of the whole place aren't exactly doing wonders in dispelling any preconceived ideas folks might have about the kind of people that would open up a medical marijuana dispensary. It certainly adds a little color to the neighborhood which is good.

Speaking of color, our next stop was the The Bookery Nook which is a very cool little local bookstore. They had little cinnamon rolls that Alder and I enjoyed more than our share of. There was also a guy playing kids songs on a guitar while toddlers danced and sang along. Set just a few feet away from the kids activities was a large series of nude photographs, supposedly previously unseen, of the pop star Madona. You just don't find that kind of thing at your big box Barnes & Noble (or Amazon for that matter).

Across the street from the book store is Pearl Velo which is a little boutique bike shop that does mostly fixed gear bikes. The place was opened up about two years ago by a guy who lives in the neighborhood and has a kid around LT's age. It's been cool to watch the shop's success - I like to see thing work out for people when they follow their dreams and Pearl Velo definitely adds to the vibrance and welcoming feel of the area. Unfortunately the boys were tired and starting to fall apart by the time we went past the bike shop, so we didn't get to stop in. But there will be many more First Fridays.

The next day Kari took LT on a hike with his buddy Z in Boulder. So Adler and I got some quality time together which included walking the dogs and a trip to the playground. I made him mac & cheese for lunch which, you can see from the picture above, is one of his favorites.

After lunch we walked over to Tenn Street Coffee to try and unload some of our old books in their book buy. There were quite a few people with the same idea so we had to wait a while to sell our books. While we were waiting, Adler found a piece of the sidewalk chalk that had been left out next door and got right back to work where he'd left off the night before.

On Sunday LT and I got to hang out together during Adler's nap time. We went and got ice cream at Little Man and followed that up with a bike ride around the little park and some quality time on the playground.