Back in the Middle with You

Reassessing life.  Again.  Watch me; here I go.  I have been truly missing my extracurricular writing lately.  (Writing health insurance marketing copy has its thrills, but they are definitely few and far)  I have missed Desolate in Denver so much, but what I have realized is what is really missing is my ability to vent at MiddleSister.  If you are strictly a DiD person, and unfamiliar with MiddleSister, it is my other blog, where I have spent a lot of time, albeit very inconsistently, writing the stories I was meant to write.  I initially started MiddleSister as an outlet, a medium of healing during an especially hard time in my life.  I have always been a writer, but it took an initially silly little blog as a place for me to get some of the old, funny stories off of my chest as well.  

I started Desolate in Denver as a way to be entertaining and useful to others after getting laid off and feeling particularly useless.  I was one of the lucky ones during this recession, and I found work almost immediately which, while great for me, caused DiD to suffer.  I simply have not had time to keep up with the free Denver scene because I have been working so much. Throw in buying a house and getting engaged, and things have, frankly, been slightly insane.  

However, be these previous two paragraphs as they may, I miss writing, and while i know that DiD is what people were most recently enjoying the most, I have decided to put it on hold and go back to writing solely for MiddleSister.  That is where my heart is, and where my writing is best, and where I know my real voice comes out.  

If you have been following DiD and love to read in addition to enjoying free fun, please do not hesitate to come on over to MiddleSister and see if it is up your alley.  I would love to have more readers as I am working on finishing my first book of short stories and beginning the hellish process of submission for publication.  As always, your comments and opinions are always welcome.  I love writing, and I am always humbled that my “hobby” has become my career.  One day, I hope the stuff I write will be on the shelves of Barnes and Noble and Brentanos, however, until then, please find me here at MiddleSister, where the girl in the middle truly belongs.  First post will be up by Monday,  In the meantime, check out the archives.  Thank you to everyone who has been reading and checking in on me!

Back in July!

Desolate in Denver will be back right after the 4th of July holiday. I need to get moved into my new house, and didn't want to leave everyone hanging. I am loving all of your emails and ideas and will look forward to some more great summer outings in a couple weeks. Right now, I am back to packing!

Park It!

We here at DiD reserve the right to slack off at will, however, we will try not to be quite this bad in the future. In all honesty, we--and by we, I mean I--have had an insane two weeks where I got engaged, bought a house, and became buried in freelance work. These are all good things, but I regret that I was taken away from my blog, thereby missing the tour that I was supposed to review last week. I will get to that tour soon, but I thought I would give a quick update with some great local park freebies for the kickoff of summer to tide you over until next week. I LOVE summer!

City Park Jazz

My absolute favorite part of summer is City Park Jazz. Ten Sunday evenings from June to August, there is a free jazz concert in City Park at the Pavilion from 6 to 8 PM. Starting in the early afternoon, you will see the park start to fill with picnickers, finding the close spots up near the gazebo, but still far enough away so that they can stretch out in the grass. People bring food, beer, wine, etc, and they loll around on their blankets while kids and adults alike run wild around them, blowing off the leftover weekend steam. The music is almost always excellent. The parking however, is almost always horrible. Get there early or ride your bike or walk. Don't forget the provisions! Visit the City Park Jazz website here for the concert schedule (my favorite this year is Chris Daniels and the Kings) and all of the other information you could possibly need.

National Park Free Days

As part of our national stimulus plan, The National Park Service is offering a few free weekends throughout the summer where you can get into over 100 National Parks across the country for free! Starting Father's Day weekend, June 20-21, you will be able to visit any of the parks on this list and on the designated weekends without paying what are sometimes lofty fees. All of Colorado's National Parks are included! Maybe your dad would like to spend Father's Day hiking around Rocky Mountain National Park. For additional information visit the main NPS site here.

CHUN People's Fair

If you are looking for something else fun to do this weekend in a park, the Capitol Hill United Neighborhood People's Fair starts June 6th in Civic Center Park. This is always a great time for food, music, crafts, art, and lots of people watching. The fair goes all day Saturday and Sunday, and you can find more information here.

Have a great weekend. I'll see you at the park!

That's Why They Call it Happy Hour!

It's officially patio season, and I couldn't be, um, happier about it! Today DiD takes a look at some of the best happy hours in Denver and surrounding areas. I broke it down to three categories and all websites are hyperlinked where applicable so that you can click to get more information. Are we ready? Ok, tally-ho!

Twofers!

There are a whole bunch of bars in Denver featuring great two-for-one specials, many with FREE or cheap food, too. Let's take a look at a few:

Govnr's Park (7th and Logan in Capitol Hill)- Gov's features BOGO specials on their extra large draft beers and scarily good Long Island Iced Teas and Margaritas from 4 until 7 every single day. In addition, there are always hockey game specials and brunch on weekends featuring bottlomless Mimosas and two-for-ones on Bloody Marys, too! Their website boasts specials for 103 out of the 107 hours they are open each week. Enjoy any of these specials on their great front patio, a summertime staple, and you may even run into the Governor of Colorado there (I have. Twice!)

Illegal Pete's (several locations in Denver and Boulder) Illegal Pete's is a Colorado lunch and late-night staple, but what I love most about it is the great happy hour. Two-for-ones on already cheap beer make getting a group together after work a pretty cheap affair. Add in the free chips and salsa and $1 tacos, and you can even make dinner out of it, too, which is a good thing because their happy hour goes from 4 until 10! Remember though, everything in moderation!!

Garcia's (5050 S. Syracuse in the DTC)- Garcia's doesn't have a website that I can find, but it doesn't seem to matter because this place is a happy hour must for the Tech Center crowd. Two-for-one Margs, cheap tacos, and a free chip and salsa bar that includes bean dip and queso. My sister and I work in offices on either side of Garcia's and have had our dinner from the salsa buffet on more than one occasion. Not necessarily the healthiest meal, but I let it slide once in a while. The service here is almost always impeccable to boot!

The Park Tavern- (on 11th between Downing and Emerson) The Park Tavern still does two-for-ones on the chip system. Buy a beer, and get a poker chip to go with it. You can use your chip for free beers during happy hour or later. But there are three (!) happy hours a day, so not to worry!

Cheapies!

It might not be a BOGO, but drinks are still a bargain at these places:

The Buffalo Rose (Golden) The Buffalo Rose features dollar drafts during their happy hour. They also boast "The Best Patio in Colorado" and have live music every weekend.

The Streets of London Pub (1501 W Colfax) A decidedly un-British pub, The Streets of London still features $2 you-call-its on Tuesdays and $1 PBRs on Mondays.

Encore (attached to the Tattered Cover on Colfax) Encore has half-price glasses of wine for those of you who typically bypass the PBR. (I can usually go either way) They also have a selection of great appetizers and flatbread pizzas right where affordable and delicious intersect.

Something a Little Different

Some Denver bars have chosen to get a little creative when it comes to drink specials. Check these two out:

The Runway Grill (Broomfield at the Jeffco Airport) According to a friend of mine, you can buy beers at happy hour prices and the staff at the Runway will keep them in the fridge for you until you're ready for them later. It's like a layaway plan for your beer! I like the concept!

The Front Porch (15th and Lawrence in LoDo) I love the Front Porch because the ambience tries to capture the feel of a real front porch, but mostly because of their crazy drink specials. Link to their calendar on their home page and look for your name. If your name shows up on one of the days of the month, you can go in and drink for free that entire night! Except for Thursdays, of course, because that is Flip night, when you order a drink, and the bartender will flip a coin. If you guess heads or tails correctly, then your drink is free. It sounds like a 50/50 chance to me, definitely worth it.

These are just a few of the many, many happy hours that Denver has to offer! Let me know what your favorites are by emailing me or leaving a comment. Remember that with this special hour comes a great happiness, but also a great responsibility. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT drink and drive.

See you next week with a review of a free tour of a very haunted and storied Denver place. Spooky!

Music and Literature

For all of you cultured types out there, how about some free (and legally so) tunes and e-books.

The Cutting Edge of Free Music

CNN featured an article about the free music of Chester French today. These guys are good, and they are giving away their newest album for free. I think it is pretty good stuff, especially for the gym. You can get the music sent right to your inbox (mine went to junk, so don't forget to check) by visiting the Chester French website here and joining the "VIP Concierge Service" They send you a link with the download, and you can load it straight into iTunes from there.

Culture Yourself in Five Minutes a Day!

Recently featured in Comcast's monthly trade publication is dailylit.com. This website allows you to have approximately five minutes of reading from a classic piece of literature sent to your email inbox every day. This way you can read the classics a little bit at a time without lugging around a giant book or spending your entire day reading. I chose the book Walden by Henry David Thoreau. It has 114 installments, and I elected them to be sent to my email at noon on weekdays. Every day at lunch, I can log into my email and zone out on Thoreau for a few minutes and then get back to work. In a few months, I will have one of the classics under my belt. There is a large selection of free books to choose from, including War and Peace with a whopping 663 installments. It might take you a couple of years, but at least you could say you've read it. Dailylit.com has new releases, too, although it looks like many of them cost right around $5 each. You do need to register on their site to access the free books. I have always been meaning to read Walden, though, and I am excited to get started.

Short and sweet today, but look forward to next Wednesday's post on the best and cheapest happy hours in the Denver area. My sister has been begging me to write about it, so I am finally caving (I know, I know, twist my arm to make me go have a cheap beer on a sunny patio.) What are your favorite happy hours in town? Please email me with any great ideas you have! Have a great week!

Gearing Up

Where does the time go? Yikes! To keep things on a more regular schedule here at DiD, since I am apparently incapable, new posts will be begin appearing on Wednesday of each week. I know, I know, today is SATURDAY, but bear with me. Starting this coming Wednesday, meet me here for fun-filled deals and steals. To tide you over until then, here are a few things you should know about.

Some Sweet Deals from Deb's Deals

Deb Stanley is a fellow deal blogger with Denver's 7 News. This week, she is featuring free coupons for a bunch of sweet stuff. Visit her here (and often, as she posts a little more regularly than I am always able to) I got my free cookies from Paradise Bakery just yesterday! Don't bypass her mention of Free Cone Day at Haagen Daz (the closest one to me is in the Cherry Creek Mall) on May 12. That is next Tuesday!

Get Geared up for Summer!

A couple of my favorite stores in Denver are REI and Outdoor Divas. Coincidentally, both places offer some fun courses and speakers on various outdoor activities for FREE.

Outdoor Divas is holding the following upcoming events: a speaker on triathlon training, a fly-fishing clinic for ladies, and a Ladies Road Ride with Damas Pro Cycling Team. All for free! Visit Outdoor Divas' site here and click on the "Classes, Events, Adventures" button for the ever-changing schedule.

Link to REI's events calendar here. This particular link is for the downtown Flagship store, however, you can key in your zip code and find events at an REI closer to you. Some of the upcoming free courses are: "Long Distance Hiking: Everything You Need to Know", "Mountain Biking Basics", and "Maps, Compasses, and Orienteering", which I very well may attend because I am HORRIBLE with a map. REI also offers ongoing meeting groups like Camping Singles (you just might meet your soul- and tent-mate) and V Outdoors which informs active people like you about upcoming ways to volunteer outside while helping to improve our great state and meeting new people!

This should give you a start on summer for the week, and I will be back this coming Wednesday and every (ok, almost every) Wednesday after that with new free adventures and deals! Yay summer!

Featured Painting is by Kit Hevron Mahoney, entitled "Colorado Summer"

Fitness for Free: Part Three

Free yoga is available, I promise, but is apparently eluding me. For three weeks, I have been trying to get down to Englewood for a free yoga/meditation class that I heard about. The first couple of times, Denver got hit with these wild April blizzards; then this past week I had something come up unrelated to weather. Like I said, free, but illusive. Eventually I will make it, however, for the third, and severely late, DiD installment on free workouts, I am sorry to say that I have no free yoga for you. I will review it soon!

In the meantime, I thought I would share some information about some cool free websites that I use to help me stay in shape and lose weight.

No, You Map My Run!

I am currently embarking on a training program for a half-marathon that I am running a few months down the road. This will be the longest that I have ever run, and I am really looking forward to (and, ok, just a little bit dreading) it. I have a perfect 5k course mapped around my neighborhood that Mister Blue and I run a few times a week; however, as my weekly training runs get longer and longer, I need a little help knowing where to go to get the right distance. Enter MapMyRun.com. My boyfriend told me about this awesome free website, and now I use it all the time. Visit the site here (you do have to register, but just with an email address and password). Enter the address or intersection of your starting and ending point, and then drag the lines around the blocks to create a route of the distance you wish to run. You can save routes, thereby logging your miles and keeping track of the ones you loved and loathed. How cool is that?

Sweat for Charity

A friend of mine from high school sent me a note on Facebook about another cool running site called Plus3Network.com. Visit it here. You can visit this site daily to log your runs, walks, or any workout, and money is donated to a charity of your choice. Some of the charities are full (too many donations?) but they add new ones frequently. With sculpted calf muscles as my shallow motivation, now I have motivation that actually matters, and it makes me want to eke out that last mile every time.

The King of Calories

Another website that I use almost every day is CalorieKing.com. Calorie King contains an immense food database that has the nutrition information for just about anything you can think of, even many restaurant foods. If you are watching your waistline, or trying to limit your carb or sodium intake, this website can be very helpful. I signed up for a membership a long time ago so that I can use the daily food and exercise log and get access to some of their training information and forums, however the free section of the website is really useful, too. The members-only section of this site is very similar to Weight Watchers online, except for that the food database is way bigger, the forums are way less whiny, and it costs about $7 a month, which is less than half of Weight Watchers. (to share something personal, I've lost over 30 pounds using the CK food and exercise diary every day for a few months, totally worth the $7!!) I consider CalorieKing.com a valuable tool in maintaining my health. Visit the site here. You can type an entry into the free food database right from the homepage.

I hope the past three installments have shown you some free ways to get or stay in shape around town. I will readily admit that I have not given up my gym membership yet. I dabble in triathlons too, and need to train in the water a couple of times a week. I have yet to find a free pool. Any suggestions? Until then, I will continue to swim at the gym and fork over my $30 a month. But I definitely love the options I have found for changing up my everyday workouts for free, and more importantly, getting out in the fresh Colorado air instead of climbing or running in place inside the stuffy gym whilst Kanye West does serious damage to my hearing.

What are your favorite free workouts?