WILDLY COLORFUL
Tour de Fleur
parks.state.co.us
Where are all the wild- flowers blooming? This week, mostly in Colorado State parks along the Front Range and Eastern Plains. Visit the parks website, click on Tour de Fleur, then hit “Wildflower Conditions” for details on which little spring lovelies have begun their show. Castlewood Canyon looks like the best bet right now – pasque flower, chiming bells, sand lily, prairie smoke and crimson ball cactus are brightening the landscape – but there is plenty of promise in the high country too.
A NEW BREED OF DOG
Biker Jim’s
Southwest corner of 16th and Arapahoe streets, Denver
Hot dogs. Get your red hot jalapeño elk hot dogs right there at the edge of Skyline Park. Then try a veal dog or a reindeer dog or, on Wednesdays only, a pheasant dog grilled and served with a pile of sweet caramelized onions and a shot of cream cheese (dispensed from what may be the only cream cheese caulking gun in Colorado). For $5, you can add a pop and chips and turn the dog into “The Usual,” although, given Biker Jim’s witty repartee and curious back story – he’s a former repo man – your streetside lunch hardly will be ordinary. Open Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m “until people stop coming.”
FLORAL HUGS FOR MOM
Little Grass Shack Leis
2343 W. 44th Ave., Denver
720-974-4090 spreadingaloha.com
Why give Mom the same- old bouquet when you can treat her to an orchid lei? “It’s like an embrace you wear all day long,” says Maile Inagaki, who owns the Hawaiian shop in a funky strip of West 44th Avenue near Zuni Street. Pick from a menu of leis ranging from elegant single strands of orchids to deluxe versions woven from 1,000 petals. But pick soon. The fancy ones, shipped from Hawaii, can take seven to 10 days to create.
