Une Envie de Sel

This is our beautiful and quirky neighborhood in old North Denver. Though only minutes from the heart of downtown Denver, it more closely resembles a small town with a lot of history...broad, sleepy streets overhung by vast, venerable, old-growth trees. Well-kept Victorians with obsessively-tended rose gardens. Hedges. White picket fences. Yarn shops.
This is Lakeside Amusement Park. Established in 1908, Lakeside has been, by all appearances, only sporadically updated in the past century. It's an anomaly, a mystery, a crazy, cockeyed, rough-shod, spooky, and probably dangerous carnival of oddities.

It is only two blocks from our house. It costs about $2 to get in. Best bang for your entertainment buck in town, if you like that sort of thing.

During the years that we lived in Vail, we used to visit Lakeside when we came down to the city, as a setting for photo essays. These days, we visit a couple of times per summer. We rarely risk the ancient rides, but we always take a couple of cameras.

This is neither the first photo post of Lakeside nor the last that I will feature on my blog. I will keep shooting it until they finally shut it down. I just hope that isn't too soon.