Denver Chalk Festival

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June 2 – Sunday – Denver Chalk Fest – Today the weather is perfect for an outing. The sky is blue, the weather is clear, and the air fresh. I had intended to go to the Denver Chalk Festival yesterday but got to taking care of a few details and so decided to go today instead. I did a little homework on getting downtown to Larimer Square where the event is being held yesterday and today. http://www.denverchalkart.org/festival_info/

After looking at the train schedules yesterday which turned out to be a good thing as I had been looking at taking the C train from Mineral station and as I have since discovered the E,F trains from Dry Creek Station or Arapahoe at Village Center are closer to where I am staying. The E train will take me to the west end of 16^th street mall at Union Station and Larimer Square and the F train will take me to the East end of 16^th street mall at 18^th and California. There is a free trolley that runs the length of 16^th street mall.

The other option is to drive downtown and park in the Larimer Square parking lot on Market Street between 14^th and 15^th streets and park there and use the pedestrian walkway which connects it to Larimer Square.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g33388-Activities-Denver_Colorado.html - Things to do in Denver

http://www.denver.org/ - Denver tourist info.

http://www.denver.org/events - Denver events

http://www.rtd-denver.com/routemaps/133/r0_101_SW_C.pdf - Light rail route map

http://www.rtd-denver.com/Schedules.shtml - RTD light rail schedules

http://www.larimersquare.com/ - Larimer Square downtown Denver

I ended up taking the train downtown instead of driving and hoping the parking garages downtown were not full.

The train ride cost $4.00 each way and parking in the lot at Dry Creek Station was $4.00 since I lived out of the region. I think next time I will try the Arapaho at Village Center Station and see if the parking is better there. At Dry Creek Station there is only a small lot on the station side of the freeway while there is a larger lot East of the freeway with about a 300 yard bridge you have to climb up on and across I-25 to the station. If I use the train again I will find a place with better parking options. When I paid for parking I had to enter my liscence plate number and that is how they determined if I paid or not. The place to pay is at the station landing.

When I got to the Chalk Festival the weather was cool but there was a very hot sun. I had brought an Ozarka 16.9 oz water bottle which fits easily in my pocket but I forgot it in the truck and had to buy a bottle of water for $3.00. So altogether it cost me $15 for parking, round trip train ride, and water, which wasn’t bad for a days entertainment.

I took the E Line from Dry Creek Station which took me to Union Station Terminal. There were free trolleys to take us from the Union Station Terminal around some construction and to 16th street and then up the length of 16th street mall if we wished. I took the trolley till I got around the construction and then got off and tried to check out Union Station but it was fenced off while it was being worked on. I then walked the length of 16^th street mall with a side trip to the 3 streets of Larimer Square that the chalk paintings were on. So I got my walking in for the day. I was well pleased to find out that I had my usual quick stride and pace again now that I was back to a more reasonable elevation after spending a week in the mountains.

The Chalk paintings were interesting and were drawn on 3 streets because they were so numerous. I walked along them checking them out and some were quite good. They had the usual food stalls selling the usual stuff but I was not tempted except to get me a bottle of water. It was necessary in the hot sun. After checking out the chalk drawings I went back to 16^th Street Mall and continued walking up it towards the west.

I stopped every now and again to sit on a bench and take in the ambience and enjoy the fresh air and cool weather (at least when I got out of the sun). At one stop I was entertained by an excellent piano player who had sat down to play at a public piano that was there for anyone who wanted to play it.

After I got to the west end of the mall I walked back to Stout Street and caught the H train southbound (since the F train showed not to be running on Sunday) and got off at the I-25 and Broadway station and caught the E train the rest of the way to Dry Creek Station.

It had been another very good day : )

Note: I am looking into visiting the Wild Animal Sanctuary. It looks interesting. It is a place where wild, dangerous, flesh eating carnivores are protected from people.

http://www.wildanimalsanctuary.org/home.html

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Photos

Michelangelo
A show of first casting of some of Michelangelo's work from Florence Italy.

The bridge across I-25
This is the bridge across I-25 from parking East of the freeway to the Dry Creek Station of the E and F lines.

Comments

[Dancing Dave]

WOW
The chalk art in this blog are sensational. Pick this one as it is quirky...no other reason above the others. Wish there were more photos as these need to be shared. What perchance would happen to the paintings if it rained?

[Sojourner1208]

chalk drawings
Thanks for the comment. This was one of my favorites as well.

[D MJ Binkley]

Did you talk with any of the chalk artist?
It sounds interesting. How did they get involved in this kind of art. Very cool.