Progress Now Action

The snow finally came down from the mountains and blanketed the Front Range. Several inches fell over the whole Denver Metro area. It is a beautiful thing, as long as you aren't on the roads.

“Oh it snowed last night,
Oh it snowed last night,
The snow bears had a pillow fight…”
–A rhyme Mom used to sing when I was a child.

I wonder what this means for my premature blooming lotus.

Meanwhile, up in the hills…

One of my favorite towns in Colorado, Glenwood Springs, was given a "Preserve America Designation." According to the town paper:

Cindy Cochran, director of the Frontier Historical Museum in Glenwood Springs, said the designation is significant, and she hopes it will lead to other benefits for the town.

“It points to the fact that we have a lot of history here and we really have made an effort to try to preserve it,” she said.

The existence of two museums - the other being the Glenwood Railroad Museum - helped the city earn the designation. Other key factors include the existence of the Frontier Historical Society and the Historical Preservation Commission, City Council’s passage of a historical preservation ordinance, and the completion of an architectural survey involving more than 100 historic structures downtown.

Glenwood Springs' Post Independent believes this will be a boost to the town's tourism:

Heritage tourism is the fastest-growing segment of the tourism industry, Milhans said. People interested in local history “tend to be folks who stay longer and spend more money than other classes of tourists,” he said.

Glenwood may be particularly well-positioned to take advantage of this trend. Its tourism and history are intricately intertwined. Some of its biggest tourist attractions - the Hot Springs Pool, the Hotel Colorado and the cemetery where Doc Holliday is thought to be buried - date back to before 1900. And tourism remains a chief industry for the town today.

I know my husband and I will keep coming back to Glenwood. We've hiked up to Doc Holliday's grave--the view is incredible--and spent countless hours soaking in the hot springs. We even spent our honeymoon there. (That is, at the hot springs, not the cemetery.)

It is a good feeling to know our favorite places will be preserved for years to come.

A note: These photos are from a trip we took on spring break in 2004. I'm considering going up there for my (un)birthday at the end of this month. (Yes, I'm a "leap year baby".) I hope to post some wintertime pictures then.