After all too few vaguely autumnal mornings we were again on the road to Colorado Springs,

settling in to an AirBnB cottage twenty minutes downstream from the Ent Arts Center to which

we soon returned for the opening of Confluence, which was accompanied by a gorgeous catalog*, well-received lecture by The Artist, enthusiastic reception and late late dinner, which nonetheless afforded us time Friday morning to blearily walk the Old North End

before myriad errands and a lunch rendered suspenseful

[Will the coffee ever be refilled?  Where’s Michael’s soup? What about the check?] by a charmingly erratic but extraordinarily spaced-out waitress at the Margarita that was otherwise

quite fine, followed by a much-needed solitary/in-depth Visit to the Exhibition,

Linda’s most comprehensive to date.*

After a slight respite in the cottage’s garden we motored downtown for the opening of

“Radical”, the 50th Anniversary Libre show at GOCA, which included,

but was not limited to, a clever geodesic cake, the singing of “Happy Birthday” to Libre, an installation of Roberta Price’s photographs [not shown and barely seen in the melee],

Dean Fleming’s paintings,

Christine Howard Sandoval’s drawings [done in charcoal from the Waldo Fire],

my paintings,

a Great Wall from many contributors [alas not depicted] curated and composed by Daisy McGowan and, most movingly, Electra Johnson’s brave and heart-wrenching installation

of which this [“Plaster cast of artist and grandmother hands and mother’s suicide note, 44 strands of wire, 2018”] was only a part…by far one of the most affecting and true to life

artworks I can remember experiencing. Ever.  We adjourned with Roberta, who’d driven up from Albuquerque and was leaving the next day, for a contemplative look at “Confluence” which was soon disrupted by a crew, garrulously inebriated in some cases, passing through from downtown to dinner and from whom we fled for a last late repast ourselves, symmetrically enough [given that our first meal when Scott arrived with the truck was there] at the Caspian which, albeit punctuated by the persistence of their quite foxy Friday night belly dancer,

afforded an otherwise opportune time for L and R to reconnect.  Saturday we briefly visited with our most pleasant AirBnB host in his adjacent woodshop before turning South to Pueblo,

beyond which the atmosphere cleared rather dramatically, putting us back in the Valley

and home in time for lunch with a profound wastedness upon us in the aftermath.

Last dazed days; a small walk before our third-to-last dinner on the porch,

a new door for the toolbox

and dogs walked, still

trying to convince Aggie it’s ok to have Other Dog Friends…

The second-to-last porch evening was rained out;

a last trip up-creek Tuesday

and sunny cool mornings warming to too many tasks by afternoon…

All too soon…gone.

*For the highly recommended catalog, $25.00 + s&h, contact curator extraordinaire Stephanie Von Fange.