If you are passionate about stamps and coins, you know that they aren't just pretty pieces of art. The images they bear are commemorations. They convey history.
The same is true of place names. There have been many (many!) books published about place names in different localities. And street aren't just named at random. Neighborhoods in Denver often have themes. One area has streets named for different US colleges (the pattern extends throughout Colorado...the Collegiate Range is composed of mountains named after universities). Another neighborhood has streets named after US states.
Kipling Street is named after Rudyard Kipling, the British author. Wadsworth Boulevard is not named after Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the American author, or William Wadsworth, the American pioneer. The honor goes to Benjamin Franklin Wadsworth, fellow Coloradoan and founder of Arvada, through which the north-south thoroughfare prominently passes.
Many of the place names in the area were named after individuals who historically committed atrocities against various American cultures. For instance, a major figure in Denver (and Colorado) history, governor John Evans, has many things named in his honor, including the third tallest mountain in the Front Range, Mount Evans. But things are changing and Mr. Evans' association with the horrific and rather embarrassing Sand Hill Massacre has caused folks to re-evaluate his "honor". Mount Evans is now Mount Blue Sky, a name suggested by local Native Americans.
With that out of the way, I began the hike of 6/19/22 at Garrison Station, where I ended my last station-to-station hike.
Weeeell, actually I took the train all the way to the end of the line in Golden, as I usually do on these W Line hikes because I know there are bathrooms there and Denver isn't that reliable for bathrooms.
That gave me the opportunity to photograph Golden's huge digital clock at the light rail station. It's remarkable but I haven't noticed that it's very useful. The digit sections actually do change to keep time but you have to look at them just right...and maybe squint a little.
They're made to tell the time by casting a shadow of the time on the pavement below. I wouldn't be able to vouch for that because the sun has never been out at the right time or in the right place for me to see the phenomenon.
So, back to Garrison Station...I took Garrison Street south to a little neighborhood park, Holbrook Park, which provides a big lawn, two ponds, a playground, and an interesting aqueduct.
It's not as pretty as the old Roman aqueducts. From a distance, I thought it was a footbridge, but as I approached, I saw what it was. I have a soft spot for places where one stream crosses another. There are many such places in the Denver area and, if you search this blog for "aqueduct" you'll see others. Denver has a lot of gulches, and ditches, and canals. You'd think there isn't enough water to feed it all, but that's sorta the point. As little water as we have, we've built a system to effectively use it and put it where we want it.
As I got closer I thought that it was made of halves of metal barrels welded together but, thumping on the side, I found that it was halved pipeline sections.
Many of the parks in Denver are educational and have informative displays like this.
You can enlarge the picture and read about how landscaping makes an environmental difference, and how to tell the difference between sedges, rushes, grasses, and willows. Before we civilized the plains, that was just about all we had out here, and the willows (and a few cottonwood trees) only grew around the streams. Now, in Denver, we have "urban forests".
I rambled around the residential area until I came to Carr Street. Here is a photo of the gulch where it passes under.
My destination was Lakewood-Wadsworth station, so I knew I needed to turn back east to find Wadsworth Boulevard. I did that at Tenth Avenue.
Denver likes murals and the Jefferson County Open School is no exception. It has this giant building size mural.
The Open School is an alternative K through 12 school in the Jefferson County school system. It is also right at Wadsworth, so I knew I was close to my destination.
Wadsworth Boulevard is a major north-south thoroughfare through the Denver metro area. It begins in Broomfield (that's where the Butterfly Pavilion is) and ends in Littleton at the Lockheed Martin plant very near Watertown Canyon. It is also Colorado State Highway 121.
The Lakewood-Wadsworth light rail station is located on a bridge over the highway with the bus stations underneath.
Elevators and stairs at each end of the pier allow access between the street and the station.
Just after turning onto Wadsworth, I ran into an old friend.
The first sketch I made in my field journal after moving to Colorado was that of a prickly poppy. One of my favorite wildflowers, this one and my other favorite, milkweed, illustrates how showy a weed can be.
Green Mountain is still clearly visible from the platform of Lakewood-Wadsworth Station. Pike's Peak is also visible to the south but there's a screen along the bridge so I couldn't get a good shot.
As with all the light rail stations and large bus stops, and even some of the smaller bus stops, there is art.
Suspended over the stairwell at the eastern end of the station, Rain and Sun, by John Rogers, combines glass and metallic streamers to recall the unpredictable weather patterns of Colorado.
Metallic streamers are a repeated element in these station art pieces. You'll see them again when I get to Sheridan Station.
Next up is Lamar Station and this one will be very urban. I have the options of walking back south to skirt a golf course that the Lakewood Gulch runs through, follow a residential street that parallels the light rail, or go north and take Colfax east. For several reasons, I choose Colfax.
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