Best Place to Find Sewer Help on New Year's Eve 2002 | Colorado Sewer Service | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
Navigation
You're dressed up in your best Soup-and-Fish or evening gown, just about to trip the light fantastic on New Year's Eve, when you detect a murky puddle oozing up from the basement drain. Who ya gonna call? Try Colorado Sewer. While they can't work miracles, they do work that evening. And with a little luck, you can have whatever ails your house snaked out so that you can still sneak out before the stroke of midnight.

The Emily Griffith Opportunity School (EGOS) has been an educational resource for over 85 years, but even Miss Emily herself would be amazed to see its 21st-century outreach. Folks seeking careers in everything from aviation to manicuring can click on the school's site and start flying. Visitors also can see photos of recent grads, hints on finances and other good things. And if you don't like the school's Web site, sign up for EGOS Web design classes -- maybe you can be its next creator.

The DPL's impressive effort to post thousands of images from its photography archives - images of Colorado and the West stretching over a century and a half, with extensive collections dealing with everything from the Ludlow Massacre to the changing face of Denver's downtown--is a cyber surfer's delight. Browse, search or wallow, if you prefer, but click on over and travel back in time.

Admit it: You have plenty of time to read, but not enough time to browse the local library. At the Highlands Ranch Library, adult patrons can have librarians select titles that match their tastes simply by filling out an application including information on favorite authors and books read in the past. They'll call you when your books are ready for pickup; it's that simple. Make that one John Grisham with a side of Stephen King to go.

The Colorado Talking Book Library (CTBL) was created to give disabled book-lovers more options. The government-funded program offers Braille books, taped books and playback machines. You must apply and meet certain requirements to use the facility, but once you do, it's completely free, including usage and shipping of the books and machines. Adding to the convenience, books may be ordered by phone.

Small and unassuming, Hijos de Sol is a good deed in every way, from the stunning Leo Tanguma mural that dresses up the neighborhood and announces the little store's existence around the corner, to its humanitarian intent to ensure that profits from coffees and handcrafts go to the Latin American villagers who package or create them. But as the mural's shimmering presence outside implies, Hijos also supports art, offering striking black-and-white Diego Rivera prints, postcards of works by contemporary Mexican artists and a specialized selection of art books, including particularly beautiful bilingual or Spanish-language children's picture books, such as Matthew Gollub's Oaxacan folk tales with illustrations by painter and muralist Leovigildo Martínez and the autobiographical Family Pictures, by illustrator Carmen Garza. ¡Ándele!

Aficionados maintain that African art tells stories. That's African Experiences owner Miles Forsyth's story, and he's sticking to it. Originally from South Africa, he returns to his home continent every year to visit and to hunt down merchandise, and he's been wildly successful. The walls of his shop are lined with fantastic tribal masks, as well as vibrant patterned rugs and weavings, and the exotic Zulu baskets woven in geometric earth tones are sublime. Tribe it -- you'll like it.
Prince Philip's Pipes and Tobacco treats you like royalty, with a marvelous selection of all-legal imports and an extremely knowledgeable and customer-oriented proprietor, Jon Cacherat, to help guide you in your selections. Celebs and working stiffs fire up stogies and trade tips on pipe tobacco in the shop's thoroughly democratic (and pungent) atmosphere.

Best Road Trip Destination for Western Paraphernalia

Savage-West

Far outside the city lights lies the Savage-West, a Western memorabilia store. Owner Kris Hurley deems her diverse inventory "ranch and farm junk." But whether you desire the sun-bleached skulls of long-dead longhorn cattle, brightly colored Mexican blankets or just Western antiques, Savage-West probably has it. Hurley and her partner, Gina Cox, opened the store last November and plan to diversify with some seasonal and new products, including Western-themed Christmas ornaments and bucking-bronco placemats. For you greenhorns, Keenesburg is about an hour east of the city on I-76.
Yee-haw! For years, Rockmount Ranchwear Co. was only a wholesale operation, shipping Western wear around the world from its headquarters in a LoDo warehouse. But this spring, Rockmount decided to share the wealth -- of history, of fashion, of fun -- by allowing visitors to buy Rockmount products out of the office's charming little showroom and on the Web at www.rockmount.com. Lined with vintage Rockmount items salvaged at thrift stores and purchased over eBay, the place is a veritable museum of how the West was worn; you won't be able to leave without a bolo tie, one of those cool new silk scarves, or a Western shirt that's a new take on a classic. (Rockmount invented the snap button, after all.)

Best Of Denver®

Best Of