Galleries and Gift Shops

Something I love to do is see what's new at the various art and craft galleries here in South Park. Here are a few of my favorites, all on Front Street in Fairplay:

Coyote Creek Studio Arts is located just south of the South Park City Museum (which has a great gift shop with souvenirs and books). This artist's co-op has paintings, photographs, pottery, jewelry, stained glass and many other forms of art and crafts by (mostly) local artists.

Next to Coyote Creek is the South Park Pottery and Back Room Beads. Pat Pocius has pottery in the front and a bead shop in the back room. She sells her own lampwork beads, a selection of other beads and pendants, and jewelry made by local beadworkers.

Further south, and on the other side of Front Street is the Chocolate Moose. The front room of this "all things chocolate" shop is a gift shop with decorative items celebrating our mountain area.

The Hand Hotel B&B, across from The Chocolate Moose, also has a gift shop, with post cards, tshirts, decorative accents and more.

Summer is almost here (even though we had a snow flurry this evening)! Summer residents are returning, to the delight of all of us who have been missing them. Some mountain areas, those with ski resorts, increase in population during the winter. We're a bit far from the slopes to get the winter visitors, but during the summer, many friends return from Arizona, Oklahoma, Texas and other places where summers are way too hot. Restaurants start opening for extended hours, which benefits all of us! And soon the summer weekend events will begin (see the list to the left). Hooray for summer in the High Country!

Spring comes a bit later in the Rockies than in many other places. Although we had a mile winter, with not a lot of snow, still it is only in the last week or so that areas above 9000' or so have begun to green up. Here at 10,000' altitude, we had warm weather (up into the mid-60s and even the low 70s) for a few days several times in April. Then came yesterday's cold front: mid to high 30s, and snow! I took this picture early yesterday morning, when we had about 2" on the ground:

By this morning the snow had finally stopped, but we were looking at a 5" blanket of white. Just now, at 4:30pm, it is mostly gone. The dirt roads are muddy, but will firm up overnight, and life goes on.

Most of us here are grateful for the snow, since we didn't get much during the "normal" winter months. When things get too dry, wildfire is always a possibility. There haven't been any large wildfires here in South Park in recent years, although there have been in other parts of the state. Restaurants and other businesses that benefit from tourist traffic are moving from curtailed winter hours to staying open more days of the week. We're already seeing more visitors and more out of state traffic. When we get to thinking it's too much, though, a trip down to the Front Range will remind us quickly that greatly reduced traffic is one of many reasons we choose to live here!