mistressofmuses

The final post about our trip to the zoo!

Once again, most of these pictures are from inside the Tropical Discovery building, which is always my favorite, ha.


Eyelash viper, indeed showing off some lovely lashes.

Eight pictures below the cut:

This monitor was climbing up the tree right as we arrived.


Cobra!


They seem like they're just hanging out.


This guy looks like a little dragon!


Last time someone said the alligator snapping turtle looked like it was just an ordinary-sized turtle, so this time I attempted to get an object for scale. Unfortunately a large crowd of people were coming up, so I didn't get to position my for-scale water bottle the best. The bottle is closer than the turtle, so he's really still even bigger than he looks!


Just a wonderfully polite looking komodo dragon. Would never bite you and leave you to die of sepsis.


Chameleons are so cool. I love their mitten hands.


This guy came right up to stare back, haha.

I love the salt and pepper rattlesnake. :)

(It's not just the "Denver Zoo" anymore, ha.)

The Monday before my birthday, Alex and I went to the zoo. :)

It was a really pleasantly warm day, so it was great for walking around!

Less great for walking around was how much pain Alex was in. He was unfortunately hurting pretty badly, but we made it through most of the zoo, and did stay until closing! Just sucky that it did make parts of the day a bit less enjoyable for him.

One thing we hadn't done before was ride the train, ha. It's a mini railroad that takes you on about a five-minute loop around a bit of the zoo. It was just a few dollars to ride, so we decided to do it, haha. It was fun!

As always, took too many pictures, so I'll split it into three posts. This one for the birds and mammals, and probably one for fish and frogs, and one for the reptiles.


Both tigers were out. This is the bigger, male tiger. He was enjoying his pool!

Eleven more:

Flamingos! They're fun to watch. The one running through the water was chasing others around for a bit.


The tiger was rubbing his face on the edge of the pool and looked just like a housecat. But big.


Lookit the kitty!


We wandered by at the right time for one of the elephant demonstrations.


Will lay down for some veggies.


While the event hadn't officially opened yet, they had set up most of the lanterns for their "Glowing Wild" event. There were several really neat displays! This was clearly one of the most dramatic.

(The lanterns are clearly by the same company that did the ones we saw at the lantern festival at Four Mile park last year. Very cool! I bet they're really neat after dark.)


Lemur! :D


Closeup lemur! :D Mmm, broccoli.


Fancy crane in the aviary.


This little duck apparently wanted to come fight lots of peoples' legs. Including mine.


Sleepy flying foxes!

We did hang out all the way until closing time (4:00, which felt very early, especially post-time-change.) We did skip a few areas, or kind of had to breeze through them, but we saw most of what we hoped to.

As we were heading toward the exit, we both got free pretzels, since they'd be thrown out at the end of the day. Score!

As we left the elephant passage area, Alex remarked that he wanted to see an elephant actually use the bridge. You always walk under it, but we haven't ever seen any of the elephants using it.

And immediately...


Alex summoned him!

For Alex's birthday, we went to the aquarium! It had been a few years since we went, so it was exciting to get to go back, as always.

Splitting the pictures into two posts, so there aren't too too many in one post. No theme to which pictures are in which post, just a chronological trip through the aquarium.


I love these guys. You walk underneath them and look up at them schooling.

Fourteen more pictures below the cut:

This face made me laugh.


Very atypically-colored trout! It seemed to love showing off, coming right up to the glass, ha.


Posing so perfectly!


Across from the sturgeons (big), there's a reconstruction of a mosasaur (Very Big.)


Little shark and rays!


Smiling ravioli photobomb!


Multi-colored seahorses! I love them.


Seahorse!


The sea is full of bizarre creatures. (YOU CAN SEE THROUGH ITS FACE.)


A little flight of rays.


These guys were cool.


Sharks and flounder!


Little urchin and fashionable shell hat!


Impressive orange lipstick.

Such a lovely tank! So many sea stars.

(And now I am starting to really feel that "spring forward" thing, so I'm going to take a nap, haha.)

With everything that's been going on this year so far, we haven't had many chances to get out and do much.

One of the things that we'd wanted to do was visit one of the temporary exhibits at the Denver Botanic Gardens: their orchid showcase. Then my appendix tried to kill me, and we both pretty much entirely forgot about it. At some point in the second week of February Alex remembered and suggested we try to go sometime, so I looked it up to check how long the exhibit was running... to discover it was only going through Monday the 16th. That narrowed down our options a bit, but luckily we were both feeling well enough to go, and the decidedly un-winter-like weather continued to cooperate with us.

And it was lovely! The orchids were mostly in the "orangery," a stretch of semi-indoor/semi-open space that looks in on the greenhouses and has some citrus trees and such year-round. We spent most of our time there and in the big conservatory, though we did take a walk around the rest of the gardens as well.

The pictures in this post are primarily not of the orchids, and the orchids will get their own post.


We did get to see the koi, which are always a favorite!


The view when you walk in to the main building.

Here you obviously can see a lot of orchids on display around the water feature. (I'm fond of the ones in the tentacle-y hanging pots.)

Nineteen more pictures from the gardens:

There was also some decoration for Lunar New Year.

We went into the conservatory, which I always love walking around. Give me all the indoor rainforest.


So many pods on the cocoa tree!


A cute hidden spray of flowers.


I am very charmed by these leaves that all but vacuum seal themselves to the tree they're growing on. They look like little scales.


Dart frog!


These little flowers were pretty and cute, and on closer inspection, each little flower had a teeny tiny ant on it! The image does not really convey how TINY these little ants were. Smaller than typical little black sugar ants. TINY. Getting little nectar drinks.


I think insects are cute, so this ant taking a step from one flower to another was extremely adorable, imo.


An interesting flower.

After this, it was down to the orangery.

The Denver Botanic Gardens has a very extensive bonsai collection, which is very cool. Most of them are off-display for the season (and will be outside for the summer.)


This one is on display inside, so it can be seen blooming. A bougainvillea! (Been in training as a bonsai for over 25 years, now!)


Carnivorous plant terrariums, my beloved. A Venus flytrap.


A random non-orchid. Look at this furry cactus flower!

The main feature of the orangery was the orchids, so most of those will be in the next post. After this, we headed outside to do a quick wander around the rest of the gardens.


It felt a little too soon for the hyacinths to be pushing their way up. Usually we don't see those until March...

The fish weren't too sad about the warm weather!


One of my favorite koi in the pond: this white-gold one with the extra fancy fins.


The fancy yellow-gold one is Alex's favorite. But so many cool and pretty koi!


This one makes me laugh. The yellow one was so excited at the potential for food that it lifted that little orange one out of the water on its head entirely!


They're so pretty.

I really like the extra-fancy finned fish, though there are fairly few of them in the pond. It's often just been the silvery white one and the bright yellow one. This year, we were excited to see a few younger ones with the same extra-long fins:


This one is very cute already, and will be lovely when it grows up more.


Snowdrops!


Too early for peonies to be trying to get in on anything!

It was a really beautiful day to be out! I'm glad we had the chance to go before the exhibit shut down. The orchids themselves were gorgeous, and pics of them will be in a different post!

For the last couple years, I've shared my favorite pictures taken for the year. Here are my top fifteen for 2025!

As usual, it's pretty clear what my favorite subject matter is, haha.

January 07, at home:


Cy and Bella cuddling.

It was a little rare for them to cuddle together for long, and getting a picture of them doing so seemed to be even harder. I miss him so much, still.

Thirteen more pictures, chronological through the year:

June 03, at the Denver Botanic Gardens:


Rainwater in the center of a poppy.

We'd set up a plan to go to the Botanic Gardens for my mom's birthday, and when the day came, it was chilly and rained. Initially we were a bit disappointed, but it turned out to be absolutely perfect. The clouds made for perfect photo lighting, and it had been such a soft rain, the raindrops clinging to everything were beautiful. (There were a couple pictures of roses covered in beads of rain that I almost picked instead, but I just really liked this one.)

July 06, at Roxborough State Park:


A bumblebee on a bee balm flower.

These bumblebees were ENORMOUS.

July 08, at Hudson Gardens:


A bullfrog.

This bullfrog was huge and so very chill about us taking his picture.

July 14, at Lair o' the Bear Open Space Park:


It's Bella!

This is one of my favorite pictures that I've taken of Bella. She just has such soft eyes, ha.


A pygmy nuthatch.

From that same hike, a surprisingly cooperative little bird!

July 21, at Castlewood Canyon State Park:


A hummingbird nest.

I was so beyond charmed to see this tiny nest! The lichens and seed fluff and spiderwebs making up the construction is just so perfect.

July 29, at Centennial Cone Open Space Park:


A view from pretty way up.

This park is pretty way up in the mountains. We hadn't been before (and of course ended up going on the day that the *one* tiny thunderstorm that spawned over the mountains picked this exact spot, haha.)


A lizard!

I loved this guy's very vibrant markings! On a sunnier day, I'm sure they actually help him blend in extremely well with darker plant shadows.

August 26, Greenbelt:


Bumblebee!

Much, much smaller than the giant bumblebee from before. I do love their little orange belt.

September 02, Castlewood Canyon State Park:


A fawn!

I was delighted that this fawn still had some spots!

September 08, Alexx & Michael's Pond:


Pelicans!

Alex and I went up to this random neighborhood park to catch sight of an avian oddity: a wood stork! (Perfectly common in some places, but not in Colorado!) We did spot the stork, which was very cool, but the pelicans were also stars of the day, haha. There were SO MANY!

October 14, Greenbelt:


Fall colors.

We were graced with an extremely beautiful fall, and the colors were gorgeous! The gold against the intensely blue sky was especially striking.

November 04, Red Rocks:


It's Bella!

Bella loves rock climbing, and I was very pleased with this picture of her so dramatically backlit!

November 11, the north plains:


The Northern Lights!

We had another chance to go see auroras this year (having seen them for the first time last year.) They were spectacular! It was amazing to see them, and while they were not as intense to the naked eye as it was on camera, the color was visible. It was so, so cool to get to go up and see them, and I'm so glad we did.

-

Obviously I take a lot of pictures of flowers and bees and birds and my dog, haha.

Continuing to take advantage of our unseasonably warm weather, we wanted to find somewhere to go on a hike or walk that wouldn't involve heading up into the mountains (where it was likely to be less warm.)

We settled on Bear Creek Lake Park. (It's a nice spot, though it's been many years since I've gone there. We always get a state park pass, so usually stick to those or to the free county parks. Bear Creek Lake is not a state or county park, and has a separate entry fee.)

We're most of the way past our fall colors, though there were still a few areas with gold leaves. We'll have to go back next year, to visit when it's nice and green. It was a very warm day for approaching mid-November, and I was very glad we went out.

We ended up walking two different trails, on the south end of the park, and one more toward the north end near the entrance.


Some very dramatic clouds!


Little helicopter seeds.

Two more from the first trail:

A creek!


Different dramatic clouds.

Then we headed up to another trail closer to the entrance of the park, which follows the creek.


The creek!


More creek! A little bit of fall color still hanging on.

Three more from the second trail:

Kind of a little spillover. Looks like this might have been a spot there used to be a bridge.


Nice wasp nest up in the tree.


And is it a hike if there isn't at least one weird bug?

Glad we were lucky enough to have another week where we could go out and do things!

I think the nice long fall is pretty much over now, but I'm glad we were able to enjoy it while it lasted.

On Tuesday night, the aurora borealis was visible through a huge amount of the country, including Colorado!

The first time I ever got to see them was last year, and while we've tried to see them a couple times since, the later attempts tended to capture a faint glow at best.

The ones on Tuesday were amazing.


The colors were most intense early.

(This is brighter than it appeared to the naked eye, but the color was visible even without a camera, both the reds and the greens. It was so cool!)

We went up north and east to try and get away from the city lights, which was very worthwhile, though it was visible even from within the city. I even caught an extremely weak pinkish glow from my apartment window. Taylor got a better picture of them from behind their house.


There was this little flare of brighter green that would appear and disappear from the lower right.

Seven more pictures of the auroras:

I did really like how many stars were also visible.


This was looking directly upwards at the stars. So many stars (milky way, again!), and even directly upwards was faintly pink.


Eventually the redder tones started to fade a bit, but then the green got a bit more vibrant, which was also very cool.

We were parked out on a little rural dirt road. It is a county road, but eventually someone came over to the car to "check if we were okay" since we were on "his" road. It's not a private road, but we don't want to freak anyone out, either. We told him we were just looking at the auroras, which he seemed surprised by. They were fading a bit by then, so we decided to head back home.

As we left the highway back in the metro area, we saw that the color was back in the sky! While we were back within the city, it was still very visible. We pulled over near a neighborhood park to take another look.


This is not with a long/"night mode" exposure; the night mode washed it out, while this is actually relatively close to (though a little brighter than) what it looked like even without my camera.

It was kind of nice that the peak visibility for the auroras hit really early. We had time to get out and see some really spectacular views of them, but also got to come home by about 10:30, ha.

And the forecast was that they were supposed to be even stronger on Wednesday night!

---

While we were delighted that we'd gotten to see them on Tuesday, we made plans to head out and try to see them again on Wednesday, leaving right from my office when I got off of work.

...And it was cloudy.

So I'm extra glad we took full advantage on Tuesday, rather than waiting and betting on the "even stronger" forecast. There were some nice lights on Wednesday, if you could get away from the cloud cover, though I don't think they ever hit quite as strong as the ones from Tuesday.

We tried for several hours to get to a good spot, but just never quite managed it. We were stuck behind the clouds, even when we pushed about as far east as we could justify trying to go. Once the clouds did finally start to break up and it got nice and clear... the lights were about done. We got a very faint glow, but hardly worth writing home about, especially compared to the night before!

Though once it did clear up, there were some really nice stars:


So many stars! Cassiopeia in the upper left. (I am not good at very many constellations, but I recognize a handful.)


And Orion!

I'm not sorry that we tried on Wednesday, and we had a nice time anyway (got some snacks, waited and stargazed, read some book), I had emphatically not wanted it to be an hours-and-hours-long excursion... but as we kept pushing farther east, and then waiting for it to clear, and then of course having to get back home, it turned into a 6+ hour journey. We left straight from work after I got off at 6, and then didn't make it home until after midnight, sobcry.

Happy Halloween! :D

Our big Halloween season event was last weekend. We went to "Spirits and Spirits," an event at Four Mile House. (This is the same place that had the lantern festival we went to back in September.)

Spirits and Spirits was an adult-only event with some spirit tastings, drag shows, a fashion show, a vendor marketplace, tours of the historic farmhouse including Victorian-era mourning customs, and the chance to attend an optional seance. I did get us tickets for the seance.

It was a lot of fun!

We got there right around opening time, and wandered around for a few minutes. We went to get something to drink, and then wanted to go to the first timeslot for the drag show... but unfortunately they had to cancel the first time. But it meant we were right there for the first fashion show slot, so we did get to see that, which was quite cool!



The fashion show was put on by Bête Noire, a local designer who mostly does super fancy gothy stuff.

Always love models walking to some Sisters of Mercy.

Five more pictures:

Liked the candles and coffin decor.


I was particularly fond of the floating candles.

My phone was not terribly cooperative with taking pictures of anything moving, so my pictures from the fashion show mostly didn't turn out well, but here are a few more:






This model was the best. She was so energetic and fun to watch.

After that we had to head to our seance session, since those were timed entries. (They actually did not check our tickets, even though all the sessions were sold out, ha.)



The seance was held in the attic of the farmhouse.

It was led by a couple members of the Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society.

They talked a bit about Victorian seances, and the spiritualism of the era. We had some tarot cards, runestones, as well as some objects (like an ax, and a creepy doll). There were a couple ouija boards, a pendulum, etc.


Trying to use a ouija board.

Just a couple more pics from the seance:

Another ouija board.

The ouija boards did not get much in the way of any response, or the ones they got weren't very clear.

The pendulum was about the same; the only 'response' we got was a "maybe," ha.

They had someone do a phone recording to check for an EVP, and that was somewhat interesting: There was noise in the background that sounded a bit like an argument, though nothing was clear enough to hear. While there was some background noise from the tours happening downstairs, it didn't sound at all like that. So that was at least a bit interesting!

But no conclusive ghosts, haha.

We hung out and chatted for a bit, bought a couple books.

Then we went downstairs and sort of took ourselves on a tour of the house. We didn't start at the beginning, but just sort of wandered at random. They did have interpreters in most of the rooms to talk about the house specifically or customs of the era in general.


The parlor, and talking about Victorian mourning customs in particular. (Mourning attire, mourning periods, memento mori, covering mirrors, etc.)

Six more pictures:

I liked this little couch.


Some stuff!


Cool old stove. (I genuinely don't know what the white streak is. Maybe the kitchen is haunted!)

Most of the wallpaper and such is reproduction, but they have a few sections of original wallpaper under protective covering. (Allegedly including some fine arsenic green!)




(Eek, it's me.) Or no, I should say: ~but there was no one there when I took the picture~ It's a ghost!


Last picture of fancy wallpaper.

We also went on the little "haunted hayride" around part of the property. It was quick, and went through a couple little setpieces with fake headstones or zombies and such, but it was fun! There was also a shooting star, which I think was the highlight for everyone, haha.

We wandered over to some of the animal pens, and the goats came out and started bleating at us.


So we petted some goats for a few minutes.

Sadly, we never ended up getting to see the drag show. There were three timeslots, but the first was cancelled, the second was during our seance timeslot, and the third was packed.

We did get apple cider churros, which were delicious.

This was a really fun evening. I wish I hadn't had to go back to work the next day, but it was still mostly the kick-off to my time off from work. If they do a similar event next year, I hope we get the chance to go again.

Last week, we were lucky enough to have a pretty nice day, so we definitely wanted to take advantage of it!

It was a very beautiful fall day. There were lovely colors, it was warm, and it was all around fairly perfect to be out.


Much gold! And the creek down in the corner.


Liked the view looking up. The sky was also just extremely blue.


Look, it's Bella!

Eleven more pictures:

This time we walked past the other two mosaics on the road bridg:






A boxelder bug nymph!


Ducks on the creek! And some nice fluffy milkweed seeds.


A late chicory flower.


More ducks and colors!


This goober.

(This was right after she took a wade in the very cold creek, immediately got the zoomies from being overstimulated by the cold, rocketed around for a bit, and slammed into my shin hard enough to make both of us yelp, lol.)


Flowers!

We went down to the little stone house for a bit.


It's Bella again!


Really nice colors!


I love the color of these geraniums, but it also seems like a fake color, haha.

On Tuesday, we decided that while we were out in the middle of nowhere on the eastern plains, we might as well do something else before we made the long drive back.

There was a historic cemetery that wasn't too far away, and the trip out that way would also take us past something we'd noticed on our way to the Sand Creek Massacre site:


A derailed section of train!



At the time, we were wondering if perhaps this was tornado or wind damage, since it looked more twisted than crushed.

Nope! Apparently it just... fell off?

It was carrying wheat!

(At least some of what looks like sand or dirt blown up against the cars is probably wheat.)

This article has even less info, but some cool aerial shots.

While a couple articles talk about the derailment, and mention the cause being under investigation, I did not see any followup. The derailment also apparently happened on August 20, so it had been sitting for a bit.

Five more pictures:

Many springs in the grass.

I was glad we got to stop and get a closer look, though at the time we didn't know any details about what had happened.