Falling in Love with the Mountains - Part 3

Let's talk for a minute about how ... strange ... weird ... unusual ... crazy ... fun ... awesome ... the downtown is in this mountain city. Where else can you go to find someone dressed entirely in grocery bags; a guy juggling machetes while balancing on a precarious slab of wood wearing nothing but blue paint, torn jeans and high heels; purple busses; a man dressed as a nun and riding a bike you wonder how he ever got onto; jugglers, painters and musicians on all the corners; old and young, businessman and hippie playing chess together; words from the Bible being shouted near the busiest corner; firetrucks screaming through the narrow streets at some point every hour (I had to wonder if there were really that many fires, or if the firefighters just got bored and wanted to make a loud lap around the city for entertainment...), and local, local, local posters in every window and on every bumper. (Can you match the descriptions with the pictures in the collage above?

One of our favorite things to do was to go downtown on Friday night and dance in/watch the drum circle.
Bring your own drum and play your heart out! Or dance to the beat - or just sit and enjoy watching others. Highly, highly entertaining.

As for the people there, the blonde lady in this next picture seemed to sum it all up nicely. Take a look... take a closer look...

Bare feet, homemade skirt, braless, armpit hair, and a smile on her face that gives the viewer the impression that she is free from all cares (and maybe a little stoned...).

After dancing till the kids were tired, we left the drum circle to stroll through downtown. The kids could not get enough of the musical street performers. They could have watched all night.

One night we even stumbled on some sort of Christian revival complete with colorful flags and some sort of long, wooden horn.

The audience was mostly captivated... many were raising their arms to the sky and swaying from side to side... some were singing along to the songs... one lady even ended up prostrate on the ground in front of the 'flag-man'. Each time one song would end, Miles would start panicking and saying, "Moe sahn? (more song?), Moe sahn?!" And, to everyone's pleasure, they sang more and more and more and more songs...

You know, I really, really love Christian music. There were some beautiful lyrics in some of the songs that they sang and I found myself touched a few times.

However, the 'showiness' of their flags and dancers, while interesting to watch, seemed to detract from the spirit that was trying to be felt there. It made me grateful that the church I belong to puts much more emphasis on 'teaching' rather than 'entertaining' - and I realized that the Spirit itself is much more powerful in motivating me to think of Christ than a whole flashy show meant to do that very thing...

Though the Christian show captivated Miles, Carson found his attention being sucked in another direction. I think he has found a new life goal...
This guy just rode around the city one night popping wheelies, standing on his seat, hopping down stairs, twisting his handlebars around in the air... don't try it, Carson. At least, not without a helmet...

Brian was mostly mesmerized by this lady:
I think he gave her close to $5 in coins over a 20 minute period. She posed as a statue, and quite remarkably stayed as still as one, until someone would drop a coin or two in a basket in front of her. At this point, she would play a little drum solo and turn to blink a 'thank you' to whomever dropped the coins. We happened to be resting on some benches when she came to set herself up, so we had front row seats of her performance for quite a while.

It was amusing to watch passers-by timidly approach her, telling themselves that she must be a real person, and jump in alarm as her drum beat loudly in their faces as their coins hit her bucket. She has Brian to thank for many of those coins and dollar bills, put into her bucket by our kids...

Downtown was certainly an odd mix: very clean and family friendly, but full of enough crazies that you grabbed those tiny hands of your babies and never let them out of your sight.