May 18 – 19, 2007
4 to 9:30 PM Friday; 7 AM to 9 PM Saturday
Downtown Fruita

Once upon a time there was this chicken (Mike) destined for dinner at the Olsen’s.  Mr. Olsen went out, hatchet in hand, to perform a fairly routine task of killing one of their chickens.  Off with its head!  Mike (the chicken – not Mr. Olsen) runs around like — yes — a chicken with its head cut off.  Only Mike keeps running around and doing other chickenly things as if nothing is wrong.  Mike, with some very special help in the food and water categories, continues to flourish and thrive for another 18 months, leading a very normal life (in chicken terms) other than not having a head.

I’m not making this up.

Obviously, this remarkable story means we should have a festival!  Watch a 5K race where humans run like their heads are cut off.  Listen to live entertainment, admire the car show, and cheer on your favorite participant (or join in the fun yourself) in the Lawn Mower Races, the Wing Eating Contest, Chuck a Chicken (which we hope means to throw it rather than…), Rubber Duck Football, and the dreaded Chicken Dance Contest (complete with a Polka Band!).

There are “Mike Movies” playing in a tent (Chick flicks, I assume), and even a Tractor Parade.

For the grand finale, there is the “Strut, Cluck & Crow, & Contest”.   That should be different.

Mike’s Festival schedule provides more details on the event.

So, don’t be a chicken — head on over to Fruita and celebrate the life of Mike, who had an incredible will to live.

May 2 and
May 5, 2007

Wow, Montrose – you don’t look a day over 100!

Celebrate Montrose’s 125th anniversary on May 2 with free musical performances, historic review and presentations, and yummy desserts from numerous local restaurants.  Tickets are free, but must be picked up in advance at City Hall, the Pavilion, or the Chamber of Commerce.  See you at the Pavilion at 6 PM — let’s party!

The celebration continues on May 5 in Centennial Plaza from 8 AM to 9 PM.  There’ll be music, dance, and other entertainment all day, a quilt show, craft fair, kids games, train rides, carriage rides, and a car show.  Guided Walking Tours of historic downtown Montrose will take place from 10 AM to 6 PM.

A parade will make its way along Main Street starting at noon.  But wait; there’s more!

From 1 to 3 PM, stop in at the Firestation for tours, a Kids’ Agility Course, and, of course, great photo opps.

The Museum of the Mountain West offers free admission from 2 to 4 PM.  This  museum features a number of original and restored historic buildings saved from demolition as Montrose has grown.  The Ute Indian Museum welcomes you for free from 2 to 4:30 PM.

April 28, 2007
11 AM – Sculpture display
1 PM – Parade begins
29th Street retail district

You’ve probably heard of the annual Kinetic Conveyance Challenge held at Boulder Reservoir each year.  Unfortunately, this wild event at Boulder Reservoir isn’t free. 

The good news is that you can view the incredible, amazing, and weird land-to-water conveyances and their human drivers-riders-engineers (?) as they display their “sculptures” and then parade along 29th Street a week prior to the actual race.  Free! 

Past years have seen amphibious wonders with names like ”Born to Sink”, “Radioactive Sushi”, “Cervesa Loving Jarheads”, and “Dogs Can’t Swim”.  No matter how good your imagination is, it probably isn’t quite as crazy as what these contraptions really look like.

Click here for more information and a parade map from the sponsor, radio station KBCO.

For a video of the race event itself (not the parade) from 2006, click here.

For those who give a hoot about this planet we live on, here are just a smattering of free festivities, presentations, and volunteer opportunities taking place this weekend in observance of Earth Day:

Wild Earth Saturday featuring Dirt Days (Boulder)
April 21, 2007 – 10 AM to 4 PM @ NCAR’s Mesa Lab
Celebrate the world at your fingertips and its dirt in your hands. Films, hands-on exhibits, mountain challenges, food and live music. 

Bake cookies in solar ovens, Face painting, Meet live raptors, Interactive theater workshop, Mountain sport clinics, Alternative energy demos, Make your own biodiesel, Interactive climate change exhibits.

Also, are you up for the DIRT DAYS CHALLENGE?  Try new adventures! Events run throughout the day for people of all ages. Professionals are available at each station for expert guidance and safety.
Adventures include:   Climbing/Bouldering, Fly Casting, Balance challenges, and a Pack run.

Earth Day at Garden of the Gods (Colorado Springs)
April 22, 2007

Live wolf, birds of prey, arts & crafts for kids, guided nature walks, Native American performances, living history demonstrations, free admission to Rock Ledge Ranch, live music.

Earth Day Celebration (Denver/Morrison)
April 21, 2007 - 10 AM to 4 PM @ Red Rocks Park
  
Windstar Colorado Connection and the Windstar Foundation will be sharing ideas for the environment, offer educational concepts and many other ways to celebrate Earth Day 2007. You’ll hear LIVE music by Colorado’s own John Adams along with Brad and Kathy Fitch from Estes Park, CO.  Adams will also be joined by percussionist Jon Darling and flautist Diane Ireland for several hours of John Denver favorites. Door prizes.

Earth Day Renewable Energy Expo (Denver)
April 22, 2007 – 10 AM to 4 PM  @ Denver Museum of Earth & Science (free admission today)

10 AM — Dennis Brachfield; All About Saving Heat
11 AM — Walt Musial, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden; Wind Energy
1 PM — Paul Morgan, DMNS; Colorado’s Geothermal Energy Potential
2 PM — Paul Kriescher, Lightly Treading, Inc., Denver; Passive Solar
3 PM — Kristine Mathiasen, Green Teams; Green Teams for Your Neighborhood and Community

Earth Day Celebration (Ft. Collins)
April 20, 2007 – 11 AM to 2 PM @ Lory Student Center Plaza

Festivities will include live music, educational booths and sustainability activities. Themes addressed at the celebration range from renewable energy, composting, recycling and water conservation, energy reduction, fair trade, alternative transportation and green products. Demonstrations on the plaza will include a dumpster dive, plate waste demonstration and water use demonstration.

Community members are encouraged to bring old cell phones, computers, printers and other non-functioning electronics to be recycled. Free minor bike adjustments will be offered by Lee’s Cyclery at the event.

Earth Day Volunteer Opportunity (Grand Junction area)
April 21 and May 19, 2007 – Flume Canyon Trail Maintenance

The Bureau of Land Management-McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area (NCA), the Colorado Mountain Club (CMC), and Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado are looking for volunteers to perform much-needed work on the Flume Canyon Trail.

We’ve barely skimmed the surface on special Earth Day events throughout our state.  Get involved!  Teach your children about taking good care of our world.  It’s the only one we’ve got.

Here are a few more links about Earth Day:

http://www.epa.gov/earthday/
http://earthday.gov/
http://www.earthday.net/

April 27-28, 2007

Chipeta (1843-1924) and her husband, Chief Ouray, were important historic figures here in Colorado and in neighboring Utah.  They are both remembered for their efforts to negotiate peace between the native people and the white settlers.

In honor of this woman of peace, the Ute Indian Museum is sponsoring a celebration of Chipeta’s life, called “Healing the Heart.”  This event starts off on April 27 with a book-signing at 7 PM (Searching for Chipeta: The Story of a Ute and Her People, by Vickie Leigh Krudwig) followed at 7:30 PM by a program on spirituality and unity presented by Roland McCook (grandson of Chipeta) and Chief Arvol Looking Horse, keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe.

On April 28, McCook and Chief Looking Horse will lead a sunrise blessing at 6 AM.  A 3-mile walk from River Bottom (Baldridge Park) to the Ute Indian Museum will start at 9 AM.  Additional talks and ceremonies will take place outside the tipi’s on the museum grounds after the walk.

The celebration will conclude with a pipe ceremony and program on world peace and unity.

We sincerely hope the spirit of this celebration of a woman of peace can carry that message throughout the world.

April 21, 2007 
Noon – 10 PM
Fiske Planetarium & Science Center

The sky’s the limit today at the Fiske Planetarium — and it’s free! 

Check out the array of telescopes, learn about real-time solar spectroscopy and imaging, attend a demonstration of the new dome slit and shutter, or learn about a Heliostat (for solar observations). 

Visit the Astronomical Laboratory where many questions will be answered (Why is the sky blue?  Why are sunsets and lunar eclipses red?).  Other features of the lab:

• Heliostat (Solar Telescope) – Weather Permitting
  Live observations of sunspots, the solar spectrum, narrowband observations of the chromosphere
  
• SOHO Satellite Observations of the Sun 
  Observations of the corona and chromosphere from space
  
• Spectral Analysis 
  Emission spectra, diffraction, light pollution
• Solar and Lunar Eclipse Demonstration 
  Accurate eclipse shadows & why we don’t have eclipses every month

Or, at the Cosmos Laboratory:

• Navigating the Universe with a Computer 
  Fly through the night sky with Celestia
  
• Understanding Telescopes 
  Objects and images (hands-on exploration using image-forming lenses)
  A comparison of basic telescope types: refractors, newtonians, and cassegrains
  
• Exercises in Observational Astronomy
  Understanding the phases of the Moon 
  Measuring distances to galaxies 
  Eclipsing extra-solar planets
  
• Kirchoff’s Laws Demonstration 
  Understanding photon emission & absorption, quantum mechanics, and the conservation of energy
  
• What’s Cookin’ in The Sun? 
  Solar energy made easy: fusion, conservation of mass/energy, and e=mc2
  
• The Armchair Astronomer 
  Celestial sphere, globes, planispheres, atlases, handbooks, lab materials, etc.

Get recommendations on getting started in amateur astronomy (equipment, resources, etc.).  Learn about careers and research in astronomy.

For the younger folks:  do some crayon coloring, and view your artwork through different filters or in different colors.  See what happens in the Yellow Room — what happens if we saw in only one color?  Wonder at Blacklight Magic!

There will be drawings and giveaways, door prizes for the kids, live star talks at the Planetarium, a Rockets Lab with actual rocket launchings (outdoors — weather permitting), a “volts & jolts” lab, a sound lab, and numerous cool demos and displays.

Trust me; this is going to be out of this world!