This weekend was packed with happenings. Saturday I got my hair cut, dropped off stuff for the thrift store, and went on a walk at Bible Park with Shari. The day turned out to be sunnier and slightly warmer than I had anticipated so I picked up sushi for me and Shari and instead of eating at her place, we went to a park. Eating outside is one of the joys of life and we have to do it as often as we possibly can, especially after a winter of not eating outside. So we ate sushi at a picnic table and then we took a walk around the park. Later in the day, Shari and I sat outside on my balcony as I cross stitched and she read comics. So we had on sweatshirts, no matter, the sun was shining and it was good for our moods.
We built Shari’s new computer chair after that. She got herself a really cool Batman gaming chair. That thing was legit. It even came with these giant directions which were hilarious and also really helpful. And now Shari will hopefully have much better support for her back and her arms!
For dinner, I cut open the dragon fruit I had bought the day before. I have never had dragon fruit before and when I saw it in the store, something came over me, I had to try it. Why not, right? Life is too short to not try all the fruits (except maybe that one that smells like oil, I can probably skip that one). The dragon fruit is such a gorgeous pink and green, I was in love with it. The fact that this fruit is naturally (or at least, through evolution), pink, also made me so incredibly excited. The inside looks just as neat too. Sadly, the fruit itself doesn’t really taste like much, so after a couple of bites, we froze it for future smoothies. I don’t regret trying it though and I still love the color.
Sunday morning, Shari and I baked scones (because, why not). For lunch, Elisabeth, Shari, and I picked up juice drinks from Tarasco’s – I got the Iron Man one and Shari got the Batman one. Then we drove over to Riverside Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in Denver. This cemetery was one of the places we learned about in the scavenger hunt we did last year and Elisabeth had the great idea of actually going there and checking it out.
It was kind of sad. Not just because over 67,000 people are buried there, but because almost all the plants are dead. Back in the early 2000s, the cemetery lost rights to use water and so from then on, the grounds were no longer watered. You can tell. What makes a cemetery a more pleasant place is grass and trees. And this place just had dead grass and bare trees. And, yes, I know that it’s still early spring so there really isn’t green anywhere, but this place was different. There were patches of earth that looked sick. Like open wounds basically. It was weird.
I had just checked out a book from the library about different walks to take around Denver and Riverside Cemetery just so happened to be in the book. So Elisabeth led us around and pointed out interesting graves and facts about the area. We learned about John Evans, the second territorial governor of Colorado (appointed by Abraham Lincoln) – his grave, along with his son’s and his daughter-in-law’s graves, reside in this cemetery. I had no clue that Mount Evans and Evans Ave was named after him. There was a statue (see picture) of James Archer, a man who helped bring gas lighting to Denver.
We saw the grave of Silas Soule, the man who testified against Col. John Chivington about the Sand Creek Massacre. He was one of the people we learned about in the scavenger hunt too and it was pretty powerful getting to see his grave. The train tracks backed right up against the cemetery near Soule’s location and as we were approaching his grave, a train began to pass by. The driver thought Elisabeth was waving to him and so he blew his horn for us. I thought that was a lot of fun and I had a grand time jumping up and and down and waving back at him. Then we walked to Silas Soule’s grave stone and became serious once again.
After finishing our walk at the cemetery we went back home and had a video chat with the comic meetup group about a Wonder Woman comic we had read. It was a good discussion, my friends have such insightful things to say about comics that I never think of because I haven’t read enough comics yet!
Later in the evening I video chatted with my friend, Edward, and Kaitlin even joined us for most of it! I was so happy that Kaitlin was able to get on for a bit.
So my weekend was full. I was definitely tired by the end of it and I slept well last night, but I am content with how it turned out. And now let the week begin!
Just Lauren 