Golden Opportunities

A weekend with no formal plans....and it was probably a good thing or I would not have done as many things as I did. Sometimes plans can limit opportunities by creating a structure that leaves "dead time".

There was no "dead time" this weekend. On weekends that The Emmer works I'm up and about at 6 am. Saturday morning after dropping her at work I hooked up with Guitar and helped him install some needed equipment on his new truck camper. The camper will not fit on his dually truck without these modifications. It wasn't physically hard but it took all the brain power that us two old geezers could muster to decipher the installation instructions. We finished up right about noon and I headed home to do a bunch my own stuff that had been piling up for a few weeks.

The ladies of The Circle had planned for us all to get together for dinner in Golden, CO and so we did. Golden is a picturesque little town not too far northwest of Denver proper. The home of Colorado School of Mines and the original Coors brewery. We all gathered at the Golden Hotel which is in the heart of the tiny historic downtown and enjoyed conversation and libation outside on the terrace.

After dinner we decided to take a walk and ended up on the main drag of the old town, Washington Avenue. As we started our stroll we noticed two old restored Ford Thunderbirds cruising down the street. We thought that was a little unusual to see two of them at the same time but it was a little something to make the evening even more interesting. Pretty soon we saw a couple of old Chevy Bel Airs that had been restored, also cruising down the street and we began to realize that something was up.

Sure enough, we soon found out that one Saturday night a month during the summer, downtown Golden was the spot for a classic car cruise. We were lucky enough to be there for the August "cruise". All six of us grabbed a seat on the curb and just watched the show...there were probably 200 other people doing the same thing. Lot's of great looking Chevy Bel Airs, Ford Thunderbirds, Mustangs and even a couple of Galaxies. Corvettes....Corvairs. Plymouth Dusters. AMC Gremlins. Chevy Impala Super Sports. Cameros. Pontiac GTO and a bunch of "street rods". Even a red neck classic 70's Dodge Powerwagon pickup meticulously restored down to the CB antenna! Ah what memories....and really cheap entertainment.

Some of the cars were tricked out with engine lights and flaming exhaust pipes and they got cheers up and down the street as they showed their stuff. I was really kickin' myself for not bringing my camera to record the event. The car picture above is courtesy of Too Tall, Two Timing's cell phone. The show went on for about 90 minutes before The Circle decided to call it an evening.

Sunday morning I had determined I needed to take some pictures of an old drive-in movie theater in a suburb not too far from the house. The newspaper reported last week that the city is looking at the land for development...and I'm guessing that it won't be long till this drive-in is history. I've posted some pictures of other old drive-ins in Colorado before. This one, however, is still a thriving business and is a two screen "twin". Unfortunately the land it occupies is more valuable as something else.

I'm here to tell you that if you want to photograph a drive-in movie theater, Sunday morning at 7 am is a great time to do it....I not only drove right up, but I drove right in. No doors, no gates. Wide open. I drove right in and took quite a few pictures. In the picture at the top you can see the second screen in the background, below the main screen.

After getting all the photo's I wanted it was off to the storage lot that I keep Bivouac in. I had a list of minor repairs that I've been meaning to do for a while and this unstructured weekend was perfect for getting it done.

If I work it just right, I'll even wedge a nap into one unstructured corner of the weekend too!

This next work week has nothing special to it except get me five days closer to the big "R". Next weekend however The Bride, The Emmer and I are doing a pretty fancy dinner out to celebrate Emmer's 26th Birthday and The Bride and my 30th wedding anniversary. The restaurant is rated in the top 3 of the Denver metro area so stay tuned for the report!

Thanks for visiting.