You're not imagining it

 

Last week I overheard someone at a bar telling his friend he'd recently felt like time was passing faster and faster every year. He's not wrong. It is and the sooner you realize it, the better. Time never slows and it never goes in reverse. Everything starts to come and go in the blink of an eye. If you see nice hoarfrost on your way to the bus, stop. Take out the camera, or maybe just stare it at for a minute. It'll be long gone by the time you get back home. And there are always other buses.

Some notes on cold

Sometimes it's better to take the one hour ride home via sidewalk rather than taking the easy route and hopping on the bus yet again.

Icicles have not changed their flavor in at least thirty-five years.

Seriously? Twelve degrees out and want me to pose? And you brought no snacks?

The campus squirrels have burned off their autumn neck fat already. In November, our squirrels were spherical.

There is nothing else like the brightness of a nighttime snow sky.

Say thanks to your favorite trails, especially when you get to be the only one on them. Say thanks even when you catch your edge and go bouncing off them. Zero degrees doesn't feel so bad when you're floating downhill in the quiet.

If it's cold enough in the morning, there are sometimes ice rainbows.

Frozen nostril hairs are my madeleines.

Meandering locally

Sometimes it pays to explore close to home. My friend and I decided to finally approach the mysterious building on the hill that we've been staring at for years from the highway. We theorized about what it could be (school, sanatorium, crazy rich person's house) and what it should be (really cool haunted house, retreat during zombie attack). Set up on a barren bump of a hill with ridiculously good views all around, it was a little intimidating, especially with the cop car hovering nearby.

But it's a church. And a school. And home of an AM Christian radio station. Not as interesting as we'd hoped and actually pretty benign in the daylight.

Still, the detail on the building was pretty impressive. We later learned that it had been built at the turn of the century with the aim of making a Presbyterian university that would rival the east coast ivy league schools (it was abandoned not long after it opened).

It was rather innocent looking, aside from the actual owner's name (Pillar of Fire Church, anyone?), but it still has potential...

That's better.

The day wasn't over yet. Next up was the old downtown of a city that I'd never stepped foot in in seventeen years, even though it's right down the road. They've hidden themselves quite well. This is a shame because Olde Town Arvada has lots to offer (though they could get rid of that extra e). A used bookstore with a copy of The Graveyard Book, a Belgian frites shop, a German bakery where way too many pastries were procured, a yarn shop with a coffee bar in the back, the Pickin' Parlor full of lovely stringed things and Scrumptious, where I got both ice cream and art!

Best find of the day, though, might just be the arbitrary TARDIS yardbomb down the street. Never expected to see that here.

Of course then, when we drove on to our next stop, there was the slightly sinister bunch of gnomes on the Oriental Theater and the place where amusement park once was and the carousel should have been, but that's exploring for another day.

Whose name is he writing in that book, and why?

Not quite

Somebody out there thinks spring is almost here. Eight hours later, the 18 degree windchill and drifting snowflakes make me think they're mistaken. Not yet little crocuses. Go back to bed a while longer.

To each her own

Most of the local human population spent the afternoon indoors watching other humans run around outdoors. I'd rather take advantage of a 65 degree winter's day and the emptier than usual roads. Plus, when I stopped for my peanut butter break, a bald eagle flew by. And just before reaching home I heard the peacock make a new noise. I win!

Sometimes I travel to a place to see if it exists

There are places that I know because I've visited them and then there are those places that I know because they are just part of our collective memory. I grew up a couple hours' drive from Coney Island and never went there, but I still knew about the hot dog-eating contest and the rides and the boardwalk. People older than me got to see it when there were three amusement parks (now there is one), when people still dropped off the Parachute jump. I got to see it through other people's eyes, in books (try Vaclav & Lena) and in the background of films. It was a kind mythical land for me, till last November.

A fading beach town is lonely, more so after the tourists pack it in for the winter, but I thought it was beautiful.

Even in its decay, I could imagine what it had once been.

There's a playfulness there, even on the quietest afternoons.

  

The logo at the newest section of rides seemed a little too sleek and slightly creepy, but I just learned that it's a nod to the owner of one of the now defunct parks. Meet Tillie...

The hot spot in the neighborhood was Nathan's over the lunch hour, but I had the rest of the place to myself. Most of the park gates were left open for the maintenance crews and it was very tempting to wander in.

The wooden roller coaster in Riverside Park was named after this one.

 

I like to think it's full of the screams of children in the summer, but now the park sleeps soundly, populated only by starlings and gulls. It took less than an hour to get there, but it seemed worlds away from Manhattan.

Stout, Russian women in long coats still trundle with tiny dogs along the boardwalk where other locals argue the merits of the new Thunderbolt that's coming next summer. A lone Orthodox Jew takes a lunchtime stroll to the water. Seagulls shriek overhead. This place is real and I'm glad I was there.

What the tree did

Sometimes it take me a while to clean out my camera.