Posts Tagged ‘activities’
Meet the Trucks on June 26
If your kids are like mine, they’ll go bananas over this …
Meet The Trucks
10 a.m. – 3 p.m. June 26
La Plata County Fairgrounds
Vehicles include, two Dodge trucks, two semitrucks, a Care Flight helicopter, a hot-air balloon basket and burners, Mini F-22 Fighter Plane, a mini excavator and scissors lift, dump truck, tractor, skid steer, motor grater, water delivery truck, beverage delivery truck, school bus, bucket truck, limousine, trolley, wrench truck, roll-off truck, fire engine, police vehicles, mobile command center, search and rescue vehicles, a hearse, mail truck, jeep and tour vehicle and smart car.
There will also be appearances by Smokey the Bear, McGruff the Crime Dog, and Sparky the Crime Dog.
Other attractions include a boucy slide and house ans a barrel train. The charge is $2 per person. Children 2 and under are free.
Proceeds go to benefit Skills for Living and Learning in Bayfield.
Month of the Young Child
April is the Month of the Young Child and a number of fun, free events will be held April 10-22 in observance of it. Check out the Kid Row calendar for details, including times, dates and places. And thank the Southwest District of the Colorado Association for the Education of Young Children and the Early Childhood Council of La Plata County for their help in bringing us these events.
Discovery is coming
The countdown is on, say the minds behind Discovery Museum at the Powerhouse.
After years and years of planning, they have scheduled a grand opening for October of this year.
Haz Said, director of marketing and communications for the museum, called it exciting and “slightly terrifying.”
“The time is passing very quickly, and we’ve got so much to do,” he said in a phone interview Monday.
The power plant, located on Camino del Rio right before its junction with Main Avenue, was built in 1893 shortly after Durango’s founding and was one of the first steam-powered alternating-current plants in the country.
It had been shut down for decades and faced possible demolition when the city signed a deal to lease the space for a museum that emphasizes energy and science.
Phase I, which included exterior renovation and environmental remediation at the site, was completed a couple of years ago for about $1.1 million.
Since then, organizers have been busy with Phase II, which included drawing up designs, planning exhibits and raising funds.
Construction on those plans is scheduled to begin at the site later this month. In all, the estimated cost of Phase II is $2 million. Read more.
Join the mob
Local mom Audry Crane is looking to form a mob (not the kind that have been showing up at town hall meetings on health care reform howling about “death panels”). Read on …
I’ve been thinking about this Carrot Mob idea (if you don’t know what it
is, check out the long-but-funny video on this page.
Basically, organizers find a business who’ll agree to contribute some
percentage of their profits from a specific day to making improvements
towards creating a “green business”. Then organizers spread the word and get lots of people to show up and buy stuff on that day. When the dust settles, the business does as it agreed and puts in environmentally- friendly improvements (new lights, insulation, whatever).
I love this idea, I love that it’s win-win and it’s measurable, and I
think Durango would turn out for something like this.
I contacted the organizers and they think it can work in a small town.
I’m looking for 2-3 people who would help me make this happen.
Anyone interested? Email Audrey audcrane@gmail.com
Lions, no tigers, but bears — oh, my!
I’ve been reading The Beast in the Garden: The True Story of a Predator’s Deadly Return to Suburban America by David Baron. My husband asked how it is and I said, “If we lived in Boston, I’d say interesting, since we live in Durango, I’ll say terrifying.”
The book documents the evolution in the state’s cougar population from the early 20th century, when they were practically wiped out of the state, to the present, when conservation has helped their numbers rebound and urban interface has caused them to be habituated to humans — and occasionally view them as prey.
The book recounts a chilling attack in which a young girl was snatch from her mother’s side in California. The attack was so quick and stealthy that it almost seemed the girl had vanished into thin air. They were able to find and rescue her, but she was severely injured.
That such a danger exists here is undeniable. Just last week a mountain lion was killed in the courtyard at Park Elementary after being spotted by a passer-by. And last year two other lions were killed in town. On Aug. 22 the Center for Southwest Studies is opening an exhibit called Mountain Lion! to raise awareness about the growing issue of human encounters with mountain lions.
Knowing that children, by virtue of their size and frenetic behavior, can trigger the predatory instinct of lions has certainly given me pause when recreating with my kids in wild, wooded areas. I feel very conflicted about the balance between caution and enjoying the place we live. Fatal attacks are exceedingly rare, and some simple precautions – such as traveling in a group, keeping kids close and avoiding times when lions are most active (dawn and dusk) — can help minimize the threat. In the end, though, the danger is just part of living “where the wild things are.”
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