Cars, arts and crafts
The 20th annual Gunnison Car Show and the High Octane Arts and Crafts Festival is Friday-Aug. 26. The car show event includes a cruise- in and free street dance on Gunnison’s Main Street, an open car show, poker run and breakfast cruise to Crested Butte. The High Octane Arts and Crafts Festival showcases arts and crafts from around the region. Visit gunnisoncar or , or call 970-641-1501.
“September Splendor”
Check out “September Splendor in the Rockies,” 29 days of autumn activities in the communities of Gunnison and Crested Butte. Highlights include The People’s Fair; Fall Festival of Beers and Chili Cook-off; Johnny Leverett Horsemanship Clinic; Wooden Nickel Fall Golf Classic; Vinotok Harvest Festival; MountainAir Marathon; gallery crawls; cowboy poetry and music; farmers markets; and Colorado Fest … Celebrating Colorado’s Food, Wine, Beer and Art. Visit or call 877-351-8724.
Picket Wire Canyonlands
The U.S. Forest Service’s Comanche National Grassland is offering guided auto tours of Picket Wire Canyonlands, approximately 25 miles south of La Junta in southeast Colorado. Featured stops on the tour include visits to the largest dinosaur track site in North America, prehistoric Native American rock art, a late 1800s-early 1900 Hispanic cemetery and an early-1900s ranch listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Day-long tours are every Saturday in September and October. Cost is $15 per adult, $7.50 per child. Due to rough roads, participants will need their own four-wheel-drive, high- clearance vehicle. For reservations, call 719-384-2181. Visit www.fs.fed.us/r2/psicc/coma.
Art, writing and maps
Colorado Art Ranch is hosting an “artposium,” “Mapping in the Arts,” a public symposium for people who love art, writing and maps, Sept. 7-9 at the Durango Arts Center. Symposium programs are led by authors, artists, poets, playwrights, gallery directors, cartographers, musicians, physicists and more. Cost is $199 until Saturday; $249 after Saturday. Register at coloradoart or call Grant Pound at 303-279-5198.
Potato Day in Greeley
Greeley celebrates its 21st Potato Day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 8 at Centennial Village, 1475 A St. The event features free baked potatoes served from 11 a.m. until they are gone. Demonstrators show how it was done “in the old days,” including blacksmith and print shops, scissor cut silhouettes, cooking on wood stoves, branding irons and Civil War re-enactors. Also on hand are the Kiwanis Red Shirt Band, Centennial Blend women’s barbershop ensemble, Pearle Mae and Emil, cowboy singers, square dancers and Indian dancers. There are hands-on activities and wagon rides for the kids. Admission is $5; children 11 and under are admitted free if accompanied by a paying adult. Call 970-350-9220.
-Compiled by Andrea Labak and Dane Strom
