Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2020 i 5280 Magazine

When John Hopper was growing up in Las Animas, his mother worked at the local hospital with a man named Emory Namura. Hopper heard people mention that Namura, an administrator, was a former resident of a nearby Japanese internment camp during World War II, yet as far as Hopper could see, no such place existed. He also never learned a thing about the long-gone outpost in high school, and it was only briefly mentioned during a history class he took at Colorado State University. Hopper returned to eastern Colorado to teach social studies at Granada High School, about 50 miles east of Las Animas, in 1989, and he couldn’t shake the mystery of the facility. So he asked a few students to help interview Namura about what is officially called…

CASPER, WYOMING Drive Time: 4 hours Top Attraction: Independence Rock—a 136-foot-tall landmark that more than half a million Oregon Trail pioneers passed by on their ways to new homes on the West Coast—still has the names of 19th-century trailblazers carved into the bottom of it. Adventure: Rent a kayak, paddleboard, or canoe from 307 River Sports (all start at $45 per day) and drive upstream before splashing along the North Platte River, which takes you through the 100-foot-tall cliffs of Fremont Canyon. Eat & Drink: In 2019, the Travel Channel awarded the best burger in Wyoming to Casper’s Branding Iron. We recommend trying the restaurant’s ode to its hometown, The Casper, which is topped with pork belly mac and cheese. Lodging: The Red Butte Lodge (starting at $80 per night)…

In this Weird Year, there are people I have needed to hear from again for the sake of my sanity. My two favorites are gone: Anthony Bourdain and Christopher Hitchens. Neither man had patience for injustice or idiocy. Given 2020’s unceasing injustice and idiocy, I’ve been rereading and re-watching both Tony and Hitch. I was blessed to see Hitchens, the British-born social and political critic, in person in Alabama in 2010 at a Christian think tank debate about atheism. He struggled to the podium, bald and weary from chemo, and I feared a diminished roar from the great lion. Oh, me of little faith! He was learned, sharp, and funny. We infinitesimal creatures, he said, are made of dust from the stars of a billion billion galaxies, and as we…

Amid a neighborhood with homes pushing $1 million, Alan Mayfield and Sam Mills sat on the grass in a Capitol Hill park figuring out where they might spend their next night. Earlier on that mid-May day, Denver police officers had cleared them from their latest resting spot, a nearby strip along 14th Avenue, outside Saint John’s Cathedral. Dozens of their acquaintances had been forced to take down their tents and pack their belongings, as well, though no one who looked official could give a good answer as to where they should go next. The city was in its first months of the coronavirus pandemic, a growing crisis for which there seemed to be no plan. “It’s like a ghost town,” Alan said to Sam, placing a partially smoked cigarette between…

MOTHER LODE Joe Sertich, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science’s curator of dinosaurs, says Colorado boasts no dino site more significant than Cañon City’s Garden Park Fossil Area. The first remains of several species emerged from this spot, along with some of the most complete skeletons of Jurassic Park classics like the Allosaurus and Stegosaurus. DINOSAUR DOCTORS Bones scattered around the Fruita Paleontological Resource Area have been changing the field of study for a century. The plot of land even birthed a new discipline: Paleopathology, the study of injury and disease in dinosaurs, was invented there in 1900, when scientist Elmer Riggs found an Apatosaurus with broken bones that had healed during its lifetime. AFTER LIFE Fossils found near Corral Bluffs in 2016 revealed the missing link between dino…

Roll the excitement of Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year’s Eve into one, and you might come close to the Bardeen family’s enthusiasm for Halloween. Paul Bardeen (below, at right) invented the original pumpkin-carving kit in 1943, and his descendants still run Grampa Bardeen’s, the innovator’s Denver company, nearly eight decades later. So even though the pandemic seems hell-bent on ruining trick-or-treating, canceling Halloween was never an option. Instead, Tara Bardeen, Paul’s granddaughter and the business’ marketing manager, suggests organizing a neighborhood pumpkin walk to preserve the door-to-door ritual and sense of community it creates. Here, her instructions for pulling off a Halloween miracle on your own block. STEP 1 To encourage participation, set a time before October 31 for a neighborhood carving party via Zoom. Order your kit (for $50,…

In almost every corner of American culture, this year has been one of reckoning, and the wine industry is no exception. Richard Betts, who served as the award-winning wine director at the Little Nell in Aspen from 2000 to 2008, made national headlines in June when he resigned from the Court of Master Sommeliers Americas, citing the organization’s lack of urgency in responding to the Black Lives Matter movement. “I think that everybody in my position—male, white, privileged—we’ve all been asleep on the job,” Betts says. But the sudden urgency from white sommeliers and media figures to amplify the voices of Black wine professionals has raised questions that have also become familiar: Why now? Will there be real change after this moment has passed? Maia Parish, a Denver native, sommelier,…

BEST EVERYTHING Annette (Aurora) Kolaches. Biscuits. Epic burgers and fried chicken. Ice cream and hand-cranked sausages and berry hand pies sent in hand-woven picnic baskets. Caroline Glover and her tiny but mighty team at Annette in Stanley Marketplace threw everything they had at the past several months, cooking any delicious thing they could to keep customers coming back for takeout or patio dining. Glover and partnerspouse Nelson Harvey were eloquent, too, penning arguments for federal restaurant aid and sharing raw emotions on social media, all while donating food and time to charitable causes, testing Annette’s staff for COVID-19 every two weeks, and, well, working like mad to safely serve us that which comforts us most. BEST SUSHI FIX Sushi Den (Platt Park) What is it about being stuck in the house that…

Central City Opera House ? CENTRAL CITY First, follow Jack Kerouac from the ballfield at Five Points’ Lawson Park to My Brother’s Bar in LoHi, where he racked up tabs with Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady (for proof, see the framed letter that mentions the latter’s debt). Then get, ahem, on the road to Central City: In 1947, Kerouac saw Beethoven’s Fidelio at the town’s still-in-use opera house [1]. North Cheyenne Cañon Park ✦ COLORADO SPRINGS Once inside this 1,600-acre park, drive to the base of Helen Hunt Falls [2], named after Helen Hunt Jackson, an area resident and white advocate for the improved treatment of American Indians. Her popular 1884 novel Ramona, about a Native American–Scottish orphan in Southern California and the racial discrimination she suffers, has been reissued more…

Mutiny Information Cafe ✦ SPEER Why We Love It: Between the new and used volumes and vinyl, pop culture memorabilia, poster-strewn windows, and racks of comic books, this South Broadway gathering place, which has been a bookstore of some kind since the 1980s, is indie incarnate. With its usual open mic nights and metal shows on hold, Mutiny is instead hosting food and clothing drives. Help From Home: New this spring, Mutiny’s Booty Box subscription ($35 per month) brings its eclectic offerings to your door in the form of locally designed stickers and buttons; books, zines, and comics by area authors; nostalgic treats like MoonPies; local music; and a bag of Mutiny’s new house joe, brewed in partnership with Denver roaster Glass Arrow Coffee. BookBar ✦ BERKELEY Why We Love…

LONGEVITY WINES Bordeaux- and Burgundy-style blends from Phil Long’s winery in California’s Livermore Valley region spotlight Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay. JENNY DAWN CELLARS Established in 2016 by winemaker Jennifer McDonald, Jenny Dawn Cellars is the first urban winery in Wichita, Kansas, specializing in blends made from Crimson Cabernet and Chardonnay grapes grown in the Sunflower State. THEOPOLIS VINEYARDS Theodora R. Lee’s winery, nestled in California’s southeastern Mendocino County, is known for rich expressions of Pinot Noir and Petite Sirah.…

BREAKFAST Coffee at the Point Ryan Cobbins’ sprawling 10-year-old Five Points shop is a perfect place to start your day (it opens at 7 a.m.), assuming you enjoy a curated selection of looseleaf teas; house brews made with Coda Coffee Company beans; breakfast sandwiches and grain bowls; burritos from Longmont’s Burrito Kitchen; and cheerful hospitality from the moment you walk through the door. GROCERY RUN Dia International Market and African Grocery Swing by this tiny sundries store in Aurora—named after owner Mamadou Dia, not the airport—for pantry-builders, including Senegalese-clove-and-Guinea-pepper-spiced coffee, fufu mix (a bready accompaniment for West African soups and stews), and perfect-for-braising, meaty frozen oxtails. LUNCH African Grill & Bar Specialties from across Africa are the draw at Ghana natives Theodora and Sylvester Osei-Fordwuo’s 16-year-old restaurant in Green Valley…

Konjo Ethiopian Food, one of 13 stalls inside Edgewater Public Market, was gaining momentum when COVID-19 shut down Colorado’s dining rooms and food halls. In fact, co-owners Fetien Gebre-Michael and Yoseph Assefa had decided that opening a second fast-casual location was possible within the year. Even in late March, as sales plummeted 80 percent, the Colorado-raised duo planned Konjo’s next move. “I didn’t work this hard to have it go down the drain,” says Gebre-Michael, who started Konjo (Amharic for “beautiful”) as a catering and events company in 2014, partnering with Assefa to launch the Ethiopian Food Truck in 2015. They adapted, laying off 10 employees, moving to takeout, and preparing donation-funded meals for essential workers through Frontline Foods Colorado—a move Gebre-Michael says saved their business. By late July, sales…

Central Mississippi is nearly 2,500 miles from my hometown in Oregon. But at 10 years old, I could have drawn you a map of the fictional farmlands where Colorado author Mildred D. Taylor set parts of her renowned children’s series about the Logans, a Black family in the Jim Crow South. At 41 years old, I still can. I met the Logans when my fifth-grade teacher assigned Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. Published in 1976, it’s Taylor’s second novel about the family, set during the Great Depression, and she softens no language nor hides any ugliness in her portrayal of racism in the 1930s South. I was captivated by Taylor’s depiction of this faraway place and felt a kinship to the narrator, nine-year-old Cassie Logan. We were about the…

PRICE KEY (Average Entrée) $ UNDER $10 ■ $$ $11 TO $15 ■ $$$ $16 TO $ 25 ■ $$$$ $ 26 AND HIGHER. Want More Dining Options? Visit our online listings at 5280.com/restaurants. SYMBOL KEY NEW Indicates a restaurant featured in 5280 for the first time (though not necessarily a restaurant that has just opened). 25 BEST Indicates inclusion in our annual list of Denver’s best restaurants, released each October. These selections are at the discretion of 5280 editors and are subject to change. A Acova $$$ Highland / American A diverse gluten-free menu of American classics and dishes spotlighting international flavors are the draw here. Try the honey-drizzled fried chicken. Reservations accepted. 3651 Navajo St., 303-736-2718. Lunch, Dinner, Brunch African Grill & Bar $$$ Lakewood / African Head…