by Mark Smiley | Dec 16, 2022 | Travel
Christmas Festivities Run Until January 1, 2023
by Mark Smiley
Advice: Lucy’s psychiatry booth is a running gag in the Peanuts comic strip by Charles M. Schulz. In a parody of the lemonade stands which are operated by many young children in the United States, Lucy van Pelt operates a psychiatric booth.
Slide: Guests can take slippery rides down two-story-tall ice slides, and traverse through ice tunnels and arches.
Colorful Displays: Ice carvings range in size from details as tiny as a coin to scenes more than 30 feet tall. The environment is kept frozen by a chilling system that maintains the attraction’s temperature at 9 degrees Fahrenheit. Colored ice is created by a chemist who mixes special food colorings to ensure sculptures maintain their bright colors the entire season.
Ice! is Back: ICE! features more than 10 scenes from “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and classic characters including Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the rest of the Peanuts gang.
The Gaylord Rockies Resort’s annual holiday tradition, ICE!, returned November 18, 2022, and runs through January 1, 2023. Using more than two million pounds of ice, the classic holiday story and animated special, “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” is brought to life by a team of 40 ice artisans who work for approximately six weeks to create the 17,500-square-foot, frozen attraction.
The artisans, using skills passed down from generation to generation, start with more than 6,700 massive ice blocks — created by three different ice manufacturers — and tally more than 12,000-man hours on the project.
ICE! features more than 10 scenes from “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and classic characters including Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the rest of the Peanuts gang. Ice carvings range in size from details as tiny as a coin to scenes more than 30 feet tall. The environment is kept frozen by a chilling system that maintains the attraction’s temperature at 9 degrees Fahrenheit.
“We can’t wait for our guests to experience the magic and wonder of ICE! during this year’s Christmas at Gaylord Rockies celebration,” said Suzy Hart, general manager of Gaylord Rockies Resort, back in November 2022. “ICE! is a one-of-a-kind attraction and we’re excited to welcome this Gaylord Hotels tradition back this year with ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ and all the beloved Peanuts characters in the classic holiday story.”
More Than Ice
While ICE! is the signature attraction for Christmas at Gaylord Rockies, there are more festive activities, events, attractions, and decorations throughout the resort.
Mistletoe Village on the convention center wing of the hotel features a Build a Bear Workshop, cookies with Mrs. Claus, a gingerbread house decorating station, and gift shop. The west side of the hotel features decorations and holiday activities including snow tubing, ice bumper boats, Snowball Build & Blast, and ice skating.
Renovations Underway: Upon visiting the Gaylord Rockies Resort, you will notice construction around the property. The sign indicates that exciting new exterior enhancements are coming soon and guests can expect a revamped front drive and Pinyons Patio. A 10-year plan will see more enhancement and expansion projects coming to the Gaylord.
An original Gaylord Hotels production, “Cirque: Spirit of Christmas” features high-flying stunts, acrobatic feats, elaborate staging, and a dramatic musical score. This Cirque-style show, centers on Noel, a child dismayed by the hustle and bustle of the holidays. Throughout the 75-minute show, Noel is visited in dreamlike chapters by trapeze artists, acrobats, aerial silk performers, and others who help rekindle the Christmas spirit.
Exclusive Access For Overnight Guests
This year, Gaylord Rockies is offering perks and special access to overnight resort guests so they can wait in line less and enjoy more. These perks include:
- “Chill Pass” privileges to ICE!, offering front-of-line access and shorter wait times for this year’s signature attraction. “Chill Pass” is free for eligible guests. Attraction tickets are required and sold separately, in advance.
- An invitation to “Extra Cool Hour,” which provides early-entry into ICE! and Mistletoe Village one hour before it opens to day guests. “Extra Cool Hour” is free for eligible guests. Attraction tickets are required and sold separately, in advance.
In addition to more than a dozen special events and activities during Christmas at Gaylord Rockies, guests can enjoy many of the year-round amenities. Arapahoe Springs Water Park is open to overnight guests, with three water slides, indoor and outdoor pools, and a 750-foot-long lazy river.
Gaylord Rockies is near Denver International Airport and is a Marriott property that opened in December 2018. The 486,000 square feet of convention space makes it the largest combined resort and convention center in Colorado. It is the fifth Gaylord property to open with the others located in Washington, D.C., Nashville, Orlando, and Dallas.
The Gaylord Rockies Resort is located at 6700 North Gaylord Rockies Boulevard. Guests are encouraged to book their experiences early, as advance online reservations are required for all ticketed events.
For tickets, more information, or to book an overnight stay, guests may visit: ChristmasatGaylordRockies.com.
by Ashe in America | Dec 16, 2022 | Feature Story Bottom Left
OPINION
I published in February 2022 that the Executive Branch of the Colorado Government monitors the social media of journalists and citizen activists. It sounded far-fetched and was quickly dismissed.
However, now the Twitter Files and various legal discoveries are exposing coordinated censorship between technology companies and federal, state, and local governments. The Executive Branch of the Colorado Government, led in this by Secretary of State Jena Griswold, has some explaining to do.
I am one of those citizens and journalists that was surveilled. In February of 2022, I learned that Secretary of State Jena Griswold submitted a Telegram post as evidence in an official election order against Douglas County Clerk Merlin Klotz. The forwarded post was about Clerk Klotz preserving election records in my county.
At the time, I had around 300 Telegram followers. I was confounded at how an uninvolved party sharing someone else’s post on Telegram rose to meet any official standard of evidence. I didn’t write the post; my only involvement was writing about the substance of the post. Why was the State Department monitoring a 300-follower Telegram channel?
Months prior, Secretary Griswold implemented rules that reshaped electoral oversight — despite historic public opposition. At that time, I rejoined Twitter to voice my opposition to the rules. I tagged her several times. My account lasted approximately two weeks before it was suspended with no reason or explanation.
Now we know, and I want an explanation.
As I write this, the Twitter Files are being released, a steady and explosive flow of internal documents, Slack threads, and emails from inside Twitter’s operation to “combat misinformation.” These recent disclosures implicate not only the embattled social publisher and its key executives, but multiple federal agencies and the offices of state and local elected officials.
In terms of federal involvement, we now know that Twitter’s “safety” chief was meeting weekly with the Director of National Intelligence, Department of Homeland Security, and Federal Bureau of Investigation to address what they claim was “election misinformation” — before the 2020 election.
For state and local, thanks to documents discovered in Missouri v. Biden, we now know that Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and her team were working with their Twitter contacts, as well as pseudo governmental entities, to manipulate public opinion and silence opposition, elections in which Hobbs was both in charge of the process and on the ballot.
“Congratulations to my friend @katiehobbs and to the State of Arizona!” Griswold tweeted on November 14, almost a week after the midterms. The two globalist Secretaries often appear together and are championed for their roles in battling “election deniers.”
Griswold and Hobbs share and compare notes.
In a document obtained through an open record request dated July 15, 2021, Colorado State Department CIO Trevor Timmons instructs County Clerks that their most important role in combatting misinformation is to be, “The Trusted Source.”
The document directs them to prioritize securing their blue check marks on Twitter, and State offers to help. There is coordination between Griswold/State and Twitter.
Colorado Citizens Want Answers
The recent disclosures are not isolated incidents of corporations and government serendipitously and heroically aligning to fight a common threat — no matter what The Narrative claims.
Based on what we now know, this surveillance appears systemic and nationwide. The Colorado Executive Branch needs to answer some questions:
Who else is Secretary Griswold surveilling? Her political opponents? Critical journalists?
Our digital lives are an extension of ourselves. Is Secretary Griswold directing technology companies to use digital force against the targets of her surveillance?
Does Secretary Griswold engage with federal intelligence and/or law enforcement as part of her citizen surveillance activities? Does she take direction from them?
Are Timmons’ efforts to combat “misinformation” and “disinformation” a (shallow) cover for surveilling and censoring criticism from Griswold’s political opposition? From her constituents?
In the words of one Twitter executive, the coordinated suppression of free Americans’ ideas and information is, “what this was all designed for and a huge positive for the platform.”
It was designed to work this way. It is being exposed. Will the Colorado Executive Branch engage in further cover-up?
The cover-up is always worse than the crime.
Happy New Year!
All references are available at asheinamerica.com.
Ashe Epp is a writer and election integrity activist. Read her work at asheinamerica.com and follow her on Telegram and other socials @asheinamerica.
by Glendale Sports Center | Dec 16, 2022 | Glendale City News
The YMCA of Metro Denver believes that every amazing camp experience starts with each child knowing they belong. Our camps help kids develop as leaders while taking part in unique learning experiences, innovative activities, and experience the perfect combination of play and learning.
Recently, the Zweig family recounted how Y youth programs have been a monumental part of their son Scout’s development:
“Scout has really loved his time with the Y. He loves getting to interact with kids who are both older and younger than he is, as kids are much more age-segregated at school. He thrives on the physical activities they do outdoors and the games they play indoors when the weather won’t permit them to go out. He gets excited about almost every field trip, from park visits, slides, and fountains, to swimming pools and trampoline places. It’s not uncommon for Scout to suggest we do things as a family on the weekend that he learned about by going on Y field trips. And we always feel comfortable that Scout is in good hands with the Y staff.
The Y has been a stellar source of socialization for him, and we love that he gets to hang out with kids of all races, ethnicities, and social classes. The Y is a mixing pot and ensures that our kid is exposed to many different kinds of people. The staff at the Y has been great about encouraging the aspects of our son that they are in a position to see blooming even before we do. As before-and-after-school providers, and as counselors for Scout’s day-camp in the summers, the staff is in a position to see Scout interact with other kids with much greater frequency than we do. They are there to encourage his strengths, to stoke his burgeoning grit, and to help curb those behaviors that are less than desirable. As such, they are like additional parents, aunts and uncles, and older brothers and sisters — the proverbial village helping us to shape Scout into the awesome kid he continues to become. We feel like we are doing something great for him by sending him to the Y.
When we started at the Y, we thought it was just daycare. We’d intentionally chosen a school we hoped would contribute to widening Scout’s horizons, but we never imagined that his daycare would end up being an equally profound influence on him. After four years with the Y program, we are very happy to know that Scout has been part of a family of strong, confident, diverse young men and women who have had a profound effect on his development in a way that neither we nor his school could have done. We recommend the Y’s youth development programs wholeheartedly to anyone interested in giving their kid more of the world to play in.”
Registration is open for Winter Break STEAM Camps at the YMCA at the Arvada and Aurora Y locations. Information and registration dates for 2023 YMCA Summer Camps will be available in January 2023. Learn more about fun, family activities at the YMCA at www.denverymca.org/fam ily-activities.
by Peter Boyles | Dec 16, 2022 | Blasting with Boyles
OPINION
This is not the end of 2022 and not the beginning of 2023. I see this as a very sad era ending with no clean solutions for the time period ahead.
Denver has fallen into such disarray under the Hancock administration; the rise of drugs, crime, homelessness, violence, the lack of people wanting to go to a downtown which was once a warm and vibrant place to visit. Denver Police have been set back on their heels. Politicians are so unworthy of anyone’s respect, but this is a product of this last time period.
People will have to judge the time period for itself. I see it pretty much as the last decade. In 2023 we will select a new mayor for the City of Denver. Have you looked at this circus of people who want this job? The state of Colorado is now pretty much a one-party state. The country appears to me to be rudderless. It appears there is no captain on the bridge. So, as Lenin asked, “What is to be done?”
Denver media, talk radio, television news, and much of newspapering (with the exception of this fine publication) is lost on me. It seems to be background noise, meaningless babble. Political correctness has permeated and put fear into the hearts of people who, in the past, would have taken many of these issues on a hell of a lot harder than is being done today. So, what is to be done? Frankly I really don’t see a Ronald Reagan character. I don’t see an FDR, Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela.
Baby New Year, you’re supposed to be bringing us hope, a bright shining future and a brave new world. Ask yourself honestly, do you think COVID’s over, the insanity in Ukraine, big tech censorship far more powerful than Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst combined?
Most of the people I know are most upset about the Denver Broncos. And maybe it’s far more easy and simple to spend your time talking about Russell Wilson and the head coach, and your Colorado Rockies and their inability to hit the ball on the road, than trying to understand the depth of our malaise. Historians repeatedly say all empires fail. Are we an empire in failure? All the signs are there.
So, what will 2023 bring? Is it the start of something new, or look over your shoulder? This is a crap shoot. But can you honestly see any potential leader, Republican or Democrat, that can bring us home? My pessimistic answer is no.
But remember, all Dorothy had to do was click her heels and bring herself home. We have the power to save ourselves. Or do we? I don’t think so.
— Peter Boyles
