Retreat

What I did (in brief, with many pictures, hopefully)

Wednesday... We (fourteen full-time volunteers from La Puente) headed north at around 9am. We took the scenic route there which was nice because it cuts through beautiful mountain scenery as opposed to the flatness that is the interstate way. We stopped in Leadville for about a 15-20 minute sack lunch. This is a very old mining town. There we saw a saloon from 1870s, I believe. It was beautiful inside - you can hopefully glimpse some of that in the picture of the booths to the left. Leadville has the Mining Hall of Fame located there. It is also the location where the Unsinkable Molly Brown (from the Titanic) made her fortune with her husband before moving to Denver. Finally, it is also near Mt. Elbert, the highest point in Colorado. I think that is the mountain that is in the picture to the right. We arrived in Georgetown (45 miles west of Denver) to the home we were staying at around 3pm. It is a quaint little town. The home that we stayed in belonged to the family of a former La Puente volunteer; it was an old (1870s) Victorian style home. The highlight of my night (which may sound pathetic to some) was meeting Tonka, a short-haired St. Bernard dog. She was standing on Main Street while her owner was doing some work inside the building. We walked over to her. I talked a bit to the owner and then I fell in love with the dog. She was so friendly and so BIG! I don't think that I have ever seen a St. Bernard in person before. Because she was a short-hair her owner said she did not drool as much, but she still shed buckets of hair! I took a picture with her in which she gave me a big ole kiss for! The rest of the evening was pretty low key - supper, group activity, conversation, and for me, bed.

Thursday... we had breakfast out a the Happy Cooker in town. I had a delicious meal of Eggs Benedict. Then, around 1pm we left for Denver. We toured a place called Urban Peak. It is one of the only homeless shelters able to provide a place for people under the age of 21. The majority of the youth that come are between 18-20, but they are able to take youth younger - with consent of a parent/guardian. Some of the youth that come are runaways, some are drug/alcohol users, some are dropped off by parents who "just can't take it anymore." It is a pretty rundown facility, but it provides a major service in helping youth get off the street. We were supposed to go see the Women's Bean Project as well, but we had gotten lost and therefore arrived after they closed. We ate supper at Abssynian Ethiopian Restaurant in Denver. It was delicious food, and not too spicy, which is what it was last time I ate Ethiopian food! We drove back to Georgetown for the night (view from our house on the right).

Friday... we headed into Denver by about 9am. We went to Step 13 for an informational tour. It is a facility for men with drug/alcohol addictions. It looks like an amazing program. Currently, there are 87 men receiving help. The men come voluntarily. They have a place to sleep, eat, and learn some skills. Apparently, they have to be out of the building most of the day to either be working or looking for work; so when we visited it was deserted. The motto of the program is "Work Works". As the men get jobs and save money, the are able to move from the dorm-style living to an individual room to a bigger individual room, to a studio apartment to a place on their own. The average stay is 1-2 years. They have a shop where they employ six men to do mechanical and detail work on donated cars which are then resold for funding for the program. I was impressed with this place. We went next to The Crossing which is the transitional shelter of Denver Rescue Mission. They also work with men with addictions and also families wanting to transition out of homelessness. It is a very large facility! It was a bit overwhelming and I felt more lost during the tour, which is maybe why I don't remember as much information. We then went to the Denver Art Museum for about 2 hours of art. They had a display of "Amish and Mennonite Quilts: from the Big Valley and Beyond" in the textile section. I personally have seen a more diverse and more numerous display at any relief sale. There were only about 12 quilts on display. The quilt to the right was the only one on display that said "Holmes County, Ohio" on it. I think there may have been another one or so that said Ohio in general. Many were from Pennsylvania; some may have been from Nebraska. A more general picture of the quilts on display is to the left under the sign about the display. My last picture from the art museum is of one of the paintings that caught my eye. I would give credit to the artist, but I neglected to take a picture of the informational sign beside it; if anyone knows who did this, feel free to comment and credit the painter. We left the art museum and were on the road by around 4pm. We were back in La Jara after what felt like a looong ride around 8:15pm or so. It is good to be home and able to sleep on my own mattress rather than the deflating air mattress I was sleeping on the past two nights.