As Shea Sweeney prepares to attempt a walk across the country, she's taking long walks all over Denver — and collecting images of the areas she passes through, creating one avid pedestrian's snapshop of our changing city.
I was standing at Colfax and Colorado Boulevard, an intersection that sounds like the confluence of two enormous, gurgling rivers. I'd started walking at the Anschutz Medical Center in Aurora and would end at Civic Center Park — a relatively modest distance, considering that Colfax runs 26 miles. A tall man in his early twenties stood next to me at the intersection. He was holding a skateboard spray-painted orange with what looked to be an ACDC stencil. He let the board slide down to rest beneath his foot. He wore a medical face mask printed with the bottom half of a skull, and a black leather jacket zipped up all the way. Under the jacket and a little to the left of his belly was a humorously large bulge. What was it? I really wanted to know, but assumed I'd have to use my imagination. I looked away. When I glanced back, the man was reaching under his jacket to pull out...a.dolphin stuffed animal. The glowing walk figure flashed on and the man rode away on his skateboard, clutching the fluffy dolphin. My mouth was hanging open.
I was distracted for a moment by a person on the opposite corner waving a large sign — "Chick-fil-A!" — and when I looked up I thought that man on the skateboard had disappeared, but then saw I him rolling into a gas station and toward a parked white car with the front passenger door open. A woman in her fifties sat in the driver's seat. He stepped off his board, ducked his head into the car, and handed the dolphin to a girl sitting in the back. He then got in and they drove away.
You can find Shea on Instagram @shea_corinne.
