Earth Day

On Saturday, we celebrated Earth at the Fort Collins Annual Earth Day Fair at City Park. The fair featured great bands, green businesses, environmental non-profits, and a sweet beer garden.

Dave and I biked up to the park for the long afternoon to meet Marc and Einstein and see Julia at the table for the organization she works for, Community for Sustainable Energy. CforSE had a kid's coloring table we popped down for and a raffle fundraiser. Julia is a hardworking canvasser at CforSE, organizing people door-to-door, getting support for Fort Sun 2021, an initiative to make Fort Collins energy independent by 2021 with solar panels, electric cars and low energy bills. That would make Fort Collins an even cooler place to live.

We hit some great tents all around the fair. We talked to the fine folks at the Food Co-op and snagged some delicious organic chocolate pieces; learned about vermicompost (worm compost - worms eat all your compost and turn it into high quality top soil); got a free pansy in a give-away from the local Ace Hardware (not organic, but we planted it in a cup and will plant it in Montana); we perused the selection of used hiking and camping gear from a gear recylerly company; and we watched three huge Great Dane puppies wrestle for hours at the Great Dane Rescue tent.

We topped off the Fair at the beer garden with some New Belgium beer, listening to the speakers and bands.

The last speaker was Dr John Fitch of Sustaining Tomorrow Today. (I was, in fairness, complaining about how long he went on and on, thinking that speakers were allotted 15 minutes but Marc corrected me that they have 45 minutes and so I actually started listening to what he was saying...). He described how vital it is that we take measures now to sustain the planet and that means on an individual level and the policy level. One idea he talked briefly about is of Transition Towns, where local communities come together to figure out how to make the community work sustainably in a post-carbon world. That means that the town would develop a local economy, have local food, public transportation and bike routes, and renewable energy, to survive and thrive when oil becomes scarce and expensive. It's an idea that I just came across recently and will be studying - and might just share with you on our blog!

We ended Earth Day at Washington's Bar and Grill for 1 cent burgers. It's hard to ignore a sign for 1 cent burgers but it turned out you had to buy one and then get one for 1 cent. Misleading, sure, but we forgave them because the burger was delicious. (Yes, downing any beef product is probably the worst way to celebrate Earth Day.)

The topic of conversation centered on what we all agreed was a classic debate: in a duel, who would win - John Jamison or The Most Interesting Man in the World. The general consensus among the bartenders and customers favored The Most Interesting Man in the World, unless the duel were over whiskey, then Jamison would take the cake.

Weren't we surprised then none other then The Most Interesting Man in the World would greet us at our next stop, the liquor store, for some beer to end the night at Jess and Julia's place.

Debate settled.