2024 Parade of Lights
Last night we attended the Boulder Parade of Lights. A loop of streets surrounding the downtown Pearl Street Mall are closed and a wide selection of groups and members of the community participate in the parade. This year my older daughter participated as a member of the Girl Scouts and she found it very fun.
Here are a few photos from the event. As always, Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus made a visit to finish the parade.
Shelby American Collection
Today I visited the Shelby American Collection museum. It's in the Gunbarrel part of Boulder. I've seen signs for the museum for years but I never thought much about it until today when I decided to check it out. Honestly, I'm pretty happy I did! The museum contains a fantastic selection of cars created by and in honor of Caroll Shelby, who won the 24 Hours of Le Mans both as a driver and as a designer/constructor.
Caroll Shelby is a renown figure in American car racing history. The 2019 film Ford v Ferrari chronicles his efforts with Ford to build a car to win Le Mans and beat the Ferrari team after Enzo Ferrari played Henry Ford for a fool. Top Gear raced a Shelby GT500 against public transport and discussed some of Shelby's exploits during the film. The Grand Tour made a short film about the competition between Ford and Ferrari . There are many books about Caroll Shelby available to read.
Pretty much any car that was important in Shelby's history is in this museum. The red car above was his first Cobra race car. It's posed on the actual trailer used to take it to races, and the trailer is hitched to the actual car he used to pull the trailer and car. Info sheet for this car.
The white car above with blue stripes (a hallmark of Shelby Mustangs) is worth more than $4 million because it was driven by Ken Miles to the first victory of a Shelby Mustang. This is probably the most valuable car I've seen in person, and it's just sitting in a office park in Boulder.
The collection also includes a number of Ford GT cars, including several GT40 models. The yellow one above was driven to a win at the 1967 12 Hours of Sebring by Bruce McLaren (who founded the eponymous F1 Team ) and Mario Andretti (who is the most recent American to win the F1 driver's championship, in 1978). Info sheet for this car.
The cars above are two of the three GT40s that finished 1-2-3 in the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans, the first win for a GT40 at Le Mans after two years of spectacular failures at the race. Famously, the #1 car (on the right) was leading the race towards the end, but Miles was ordered to ease up to allow the #2 GT40 to catch up so there could be a photo of the three GT40s crossing the finish line. Due to Miles being upset about this and easing up even more at the finish line, and the #2 car having traveled a slightly longer distance because it started behind the #1 car, the win was given to the #2 car. The #5 car (on the left) came in third, twelve laps behind. Here is the famous photograph of the three GT40s finishing together. This drama features prominently in Ford v Ferrari.
If you're ever in the Boulder area I recommend taking the time to visit this museum. Shelby had no connection to Colorado nor Boulder, but apparently the group of enthusiasts who had the energy and opportunity to make this collection reside(d) here, and the best collection of Shelby artifacts is here. Below are the rest of the photos I took there.
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Meow Wolf
Over the weekend I visited the Denver location of Meow Wolf. Meow Wolf was started in Santa Fe in 2008 and has opened a few other locations since then. Each location has a wide variety of immersive and interactive art. The Denver location is called Convergence Station and is an interdimensional transport hub linking together various different worlds. The different worlds each have their own style and theme that mix facets of Earth with alien. The art is very fractal – there's more levels of detail the closer you look at things. My favorite room is a street scene with Blade Runner-esque vehicles and futuristically weird businesses along the street. There are a few pictures of that below.
It's a very hectic and overwhelming thing to visit. I don't think it was particularly busy when I visited it, but it's not a place for someone who dislikes crowds, noises, or visually busy places. It is not a calm place. But I am not that person, so I found it enjoyable and interesting. If you ever visit a city with a Meow Wolf, I think it's worth checking it out.
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Denver Botanic Gardens
Here are a few photos from today's visit to the Denver Botanic Gardens. We visited a few months ago during the winter (on a nice day) and it was nice to see the gardens in full springtime bloom.
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Backyard Flowers
This spring we scattered a couple bags of wildflowers all over a part of our yard we knew we couldn't/weren't going to actively garden this year. In previous years, that part of our yard has been mostly weeds and some native grasses. We think that it looks better covered in wildflowers, and so do our local pollinators.
The Wall is Done
Almost two years after the first digging started, and 10.5 months after serious and concerted work really began, our backyard wall is done!
Today I placed the last block of the wall. Hundreds and hundreds of blocks, tons and tons of rocks and dirt moved. All done!
Below a whole slew of photos covering beginning and end!
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Zoo March 2017
We have a membership, so we go often, and we wanted to see the [newborn Giraffe](http://www.denverpost.com/2017/03/01/denver-zoo-baby-giraffe-dobby-born/). There is also a new Tiger exhibit, which is quite nice.
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