September 18: Bright Nights at Four Mile Historic Park (Part 1)

[mistressofmuses]

Back on September 18th, Alex and I decided to go do a fun splurgey thing. We went to the Four Mile Historic Park's "Bright Nights" lantern festival display. :)

Four Mile Historic Park is a historic farm in Denver (which was once a stagecoach stop, which is where the Four Mile name comes from, I believe.) They're typically closed on my days off, so we never end up going, but they had a booth at Pride, and we picked up a flyer for the upcoming lantern festival.

It was lovely!


The entrance. (Though I took this picture on the way out; it was still slightly light in the sky when we got there.)


Should have gone back over once it was fully dark, but I do love the peacocks. (The sign about this particular display talks about them representing love. They are, of course, both male, haha. And have a giant rainbow heart. Love my pride peacocks.)


I really loved this fae creature on their throne. <3

Twelve more pictures:

I was, of course, very taken with the jackalopes.


Fun fantasy deer... seaweed? creature.


Some charming little mushrooms.


It's probably zero real surprise, but the rainbow butterfly lights "room" was probably one of my favorite spots.


A kitsune!


Armadillo!


There were a bunch of interactive displays. This one has a crank at the front, and turning it moves the machinery to move the segments of the dragon's body up and down.


The dragon's face.


Some were like this, intended to be photo frames. Very pretty!


Birds and lotus flowers.


I really liked the bluebirds and bluejays in the tree.


And one final jackalope!

I'm splitting the pictures from the lantern festival into a few different posts, since otherwise it'll be very, very long.

Comments

[scarlipswolfwife]

I love the mushrooms!!!!!! That looks like so much fun and so pretty!

[mistressofmuses]

The mushrooms were so cute!

It was a really fun time, and everything was super pretty. Having the whole place just lit by the glowing lantern displays was lovely to walk through.

[vriddy]

That is incredible, wow! I could barely process that these were all pictures and not 2D artwork as I looked at them. Fantastic.

[mistressofmuses]

Walking through the whole place and all the lantern displays was gorgeous. It's hard to convey the scale. It was all beautiful!

[rionaleonhart]

These are lovely! I'm reminded of the time I went to a lantern festival, sent some pictures to friends and got the response 'How did you photograph your acid trip?'

[mistressofmuses]

The whole event was beautiful! Though ha, it does have a certain acid trip vibe, doesn't it?

It would probably be A Time if you were *also* tripping, I can only imagine.

[spikedluv]

That is beautiful! I can't believe there were so many displays (and you say there are even more coming?)!!

[mistressofmuses]

It was beautiful, and I was really impressed with how much there was! The grounds were very much covered with the displays, so it was easy to spend a couple hours walking around. (And we might have spent even more time if it hadn't been on the chilly side, or if Alex had remembered a jacket, haha.)

[boujee_redneck]

WOW those are gorgeous and vibrant pictures!!! In reading your post subject and first line, this display is not at all what I had in mind for a lantern festival (I was envisioning the more traditional Chinese and Buddhist paper lantern versions) but these are seriously cool! I'd love to see what they look like in the day unlit and learn how they're made - from what I can imagine already, I can't believe they've made so many of them!

Edited to clarify haha.

[mistressofmuses]

Thank you! They were lovely. Having everything lit just by the lanterns was very cool to walk through.

It's true that they aren't super traditional, ha. These are all printed or painted fabric over wire frames, I think all lit by LED. A few have limited animatronic aspects too - the dragon at the entrance would open and close its mouth and eyes, there was a turkey that would put its tail up and down, etc. They look nice even unlit, but are very cool when they are!
I am a bit curious how much the display changes year to year. With how elaborate so many of these are, I can't imagine wanting to completely change it each year, but can also see not wanting it to be the same. If we go again next year, we'll have to see.

[umadoshi]

What a neat place! ^_^ I especially like the kitsune.

[mistressofmuses]

It was such a cool place, and a really fun night.

The kitsune was so cute! <3