Downtown COS reminds me of Austin, TX (Colorado Springs, Salida: home, place to live)

[COSpringsBound]

Austin in Texas has a saying: Keep it weird! I'm starting to wonder if the Springs has a similar motto.

I remember visiting Austin and one of the first encounters I had with the locals was a guy who rode past me on a unicycle, sporting a long beard, rainbow stockings and a top hat. Having settled into the Springs, I feel like if I live here long enough I might run into him again.

I don't mind the weirdness, I prefer it to the bipolar, hostile behavior of the locals I had to deal with back in New York, but I'm curious about where this is coming from and if there's a story behind it.

[beezle1]

I don't know about Colorado Springs, but Manitou certainly has that motto!

[COSpringsBound]

Originally Posted by beezle1

I don't know about Colorado Springs, but Manitou certainly has that motto!

Dang I haven't even had a chance to prance around Manitou yet.

[beezle1]

Originally Posted by COSpringsBound

Dang I haven't even had a chance to prance around Manitou yet.

Oh, you must go there!

[COSpringsBound]

Originally Posted by beezle1

Oh, you must go there!

Definitely, want to sample some of the coffees in the cafes there but I keep getting hung up on the cafes in Colorado City. I can't believe how good the coffee is here.

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by COSpringsBound

.... I can't believe how good the coffee is here.

Name some faves.

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by COSpringsBound

Definitely, want to sample some of the coffees in the cafes there but I keep getting hung up on the cafes in Colorado City. I can't believe how good the coffee is here.

Yikes... I support small businesses ....but beware of the coffee at the Bon Shopping Center
Wahsatch and Jackson!....the one in the parking lot by Ent...I swear it is actually sour.
$2 ...try it...but sip it in the place so you can get your $$ back...don't drive away waiting for it
to cool down.

[COSpringsBound]

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

Yikes... I support small businesses ....but beware of the coffee at the Bon Shopping Center
Wahsatch and Jackson!....the one in the parking lot by Ent...I swear it is actually sour.
$2 ...try it...but sip it in the place so you can get your $$ back...don't drive away waiting for it
to cool down.

Thanks for the warning!

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

Name some faves.

Dutch Bros and Kangaroo for the drive thrus
Jives Coffee Lounge
Dog's Tooth
The Principal's Office
Agia Sophia
Bella's Bistro (I got a delicious mocha frap here)

[smdensbcs]

Originally Posted by COSpringsBound

Austin in Texas has a saying: Keep it weird! I'm starting to wonder if the Springs has a similar motto.

I remember visiting Austin and one of the first encounters I had with the locals was a guy who rode past me on a unicycle, sporting a long beard, rainbow stockings and a top hat.

One of the reasons I thoroughly enjoy Salida is that "cool, weird, authentic" vibe that Colorado Springs (even downtown) definitely does NOT have. Don't get me wrong, I very much like many many things about Colorado Springs and prefer it as a live/work/play/create balance to any other larger city in Colorado. BUT ... there is obviously a built-in conservative base here that overlays whatever funky vibe may exist beneath the surface, at times and in places.

I saw a sticker on a napkin dispenser at Moonlight Pizza in Salida a few weeks ago that made me laugh and pretty well captured the concept. It read "Keep Colorado Springs Lame." My two pre-teen sons (COS natives) saw it and asked me about it and it was tricky to explain. They were like "Huh ... Colorado Springs is lame?" My attempts to explain it to them were that the sticker was made by an alt-music place called the "Leechpit" (that may or may not still exist) that continually railed against the entrenched Republican establishment that has long controlled COS and El Paso County (at this point, my pre-teen sons were lost) which they (the alt-music-art community) considers "lame." Its an amazingly insightful sticker and it captures something essential about COS, which is that the arts and funkiness in general can be and is often subsumed under an oppressive overlay of hyper-conservative politics and evangelical preening. Hence, the "Keep Colorado Springs Lame" sticker that could only make me chuckle while sitting in a place and city (Salida) that has none (or little) of the baggage that ... well ... keeps Colorado Springs lame.

So, while I thing the positives of Colorado Springs pretty well outweight the negatives, no I don't think there's an Austin vibe here, as nice/cool as that would be. I think the motto "Keep Colorado Springs Lame" is pretty much alt-indy genius and uses irony to make an amazing point about the anti-tax, anti-creative, anti-everything attitude of conservatism that controls the politics and economy of COS and El Paso County. If that ever changes, watch out, COS has what it takes to be the best place to live/work/play/create in the country. Will it ever be that? We'll see. Hard to envision the politics and cultural sensibilities changing that dramatically in the next 30-50 years or so. It took that long to go from what it was (a nexus point for world-class artists/writers in the early years of the 20th Century) to what it is (a nice enough city that is also home to several dozen evangelical and right-wing anti-tax political organizations).

So ... "Keep Colorado Springs Lame" is a great motto for "Come on People, Surely We can Do Better!"

[mogon]

I'm with the previous poster. I don't think it ever in a hundred years would occur to me to compare downtown Colorado Springs with Austin.