Sure, gas prices have already started to fall, and they are expected to drop more throughout the summer. But as drivers watch their vehicles gobble up $60 a refill, the rumors that gas could fall 25 cents a gallon in the next couple of months is like, well, a drop in the barrel. Especially with your vacation days adding up and your Subaru begging you to get out and play.

Colorado has one of the lowest gas prices in the nation as of now. Even if paychecks won’t be ripped in half for road trippers, the price of oil is still around $100 a barrel and hovering around $4 a gallon nationwide.

“People will be watching the family budget closer if gas prices stay high,” said Colorado AAA’s Spokesperson Wavelyn Dreher. “Air travel costs are also going up as airlines add on fuel surcharges.”

Travelers will surely shell out big bucks on state-to-state road trips through the Rocky Mountains—at least it’s less expensive than flying, right?—and even with travel expected to curb if gas prices don’t fall, experts in the industry are optimistic. Even with a potentially bleak outlook, the state of Colorado Tourism’s spokesperson Roland Alonzi sees the clouds clearing.

“Road trips are a big part of Colorado’s identity, and getting there is half the fun,” Alonzi said. “I think people will plan their trips very economically, instead of making huge itineraries.”

But the whole issue does bring back some bad memories. With the recession hitting budgets hard in late 2007, thousands of people sat back and watched as their bonuses and decent paychecks continued to disappear in a large financial cloud of smoke, while the wad of vacation money avoided the sock in the drawer. During the peak of the recession, there were large declines in tourism—we’re talking up to 16 percent—in the mountain states, including Colorado, which continued until 2011.

Lucky for us, Colorado may be one of the best places in the world to vacay for less. Four national parks, 50 state parks and six monuments across the state of Colorado offer tourists ways to stay busy on the road and keep the rainy day fund in the sock drawer. Also, brewery, ice cream and even tea tours are offered at little to no cost, giving families or couples a new, interactive travel dynamic that will likely please everyone involved.

The Rocky Mountain region’s American Automobile Association has reported the top activities for the last five years: Consistently, dining, spending time with family and friends and shopping have been the top three reasons to travel to the mountain states. Still, the alternatives are even more affordable.

“Outdoor experiences are the new thing for vacationers,” Alonzi said. “People won’t be cutting their trips short, but they’ll eat out less and do things that take up a whole day or two.”

Road Trips – And Countless Adventures on the Open Road

• In Search of Rapids
• Southern Exposure
• A Grand Journey
• Jack Dempsey’s Knock-Out Tour
• Into the West
• Northern Lights
• Utah Bound
• Middle America History Tour
• Paying At the Pump

The post Paying At the Pump appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

This is exactly how I felt after I saw “The Empire Strikes Back.” Luke stood there, flexing his newly robotic hand and watching Lando fly away in the Millennium Falcon and all I could think was, “How could this happen? Evil’s not supposed to win! Good is supposed to triumph! Everything’s upside down!”

It’s my earliest memory of a true sense of injustice. The thought that sometimes, unfair things actually do happen and bad trumps good.

I’m struggling with that feeling again, thanks to the decision tendered in the Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas case early last month.

Capitol, backed by the Recording Industry Association of America, filed suit against Ms. Thomas because she refused to be bullied by their settlement offer. Much like the 20,000-some-odd other supposed file-sharing “thieves” the RIAA has been hunting, Thomas was told to pony up a few thousand dollars for allegedly allowing other users on the KaZaa network access to her music library. Hers was the first such case known to go to trial. Most folks see the RIAA marching toward them with its cadre of lawyers and cower in fear. Not Jammie Thomas.

Nope, the single mother of two who spends hundreds of dollars a year on CDs decided to stand up for herself and face the onslaught.

She lost.

The price she now has to pay? $222,000. For sharing 24 tunes. That amounts to $9,250 per song. Talk about the punishment not fitting the crime.

Thomas’ lawyer, Brian Toder, pledged an appeal, and this one is an important enough precedent that it will likely make the climb to the Supreme Court.

In the meantime, Thomas’ supporters have set up the website www.freejammie.com where people can donate to her legal defense fund. As of press time, she has raised a grand total of $15,828.

The fact is, the whole battle the RIAA honchos are waging is academic. They are awash in a digital music typhoon, and they’re bailing water with a Dixie cup. They’ve already acknowledged that it costs more money to file the lawsuits and seek damages from supposed music pirates than what they’re collecting.

The concept of fair use suffered a huge blow during the court battle when Sony-BMG head litigator Jennifer Pariser stated, “When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song,” admitting into record that someone who buys a CD can’t even rip it to his iPod. That mix tape you made for your girlfriend in high school? A felony.

The only thing that’s going to fix this is if the artists themselves start an end-around. Take Radiohead, for example. The band is allowing the public to download its new album “Rainbows” from its website. The cost? Whatever the downloader chooses to pay. That’s right. You can go to www.radiohead.com and pick your price. It’s in British pounds, but you can figure it out. I settled on about $10.

If this doesn’t put the fear of God into the RIAA, then nothing will.

The post Justice Served appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Louisville, you get your water way too cheap. Look at your bill, it shows you’re paying $2.68 for every 1,000 gallons. Basically, if you filled up a 20-ounce container, it would cost you way less than a penny.
The rest of the world is going to be paying much, much more for your aqua soon. Eldorado Artesian Springs Inc. sees a whole lot more value in your water, which comes straight from South Boulder Creek. It plans to bottle and sell your tap water for about $1.50 for a 20-ounce bottle. Eldorado, a 25-year-old company known for packaging spring-fed water that drips from the foothills, thinks Louisville’s water is pristine enough that it can make a hefty little profit.

Apparently everything is good in Louisville. Money Magazine recently tabbed it the third best city in the country to live in. Maybe that ranking had a little to do with the water. Eldorado knows a lot about it already having a 38,000-square-foot bottling plant inside city limits.

Under an agreement reached last month between the city and Eldorado, the company can bottle 75 acre-feet of Louisville tap water annually for the next five years. Beyond getting paid, the city gets the added benefit of keeping the plant in Louisville, something that was far from guaranteed if Eldorado wasn’t allowed to tap into city supplies. It remains to be seen what the water will be called and whether it will be labeled with Louisville’s name. Mayor Charles Sisk says he’d love to see it called Louisville water or have some notation, although it was never pushed in the negotiation process. “We’d love it,” he says. “I’m sure there are ways that Louisville will get recognized.”

The post You Have The Best Water, Too appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The roll of her eyes was unmistakable.

“You want to spend how much on a turkey?” my puzzled mother asked.

“About 30 bucks,” I replied.

“But Butterballs are only five bucks.”

“It’s worth the extra cost. Just think of the turkeys!”

Her reaction wasn’t much different than when I started a seven-year stretch of vegetarianism a decade ago. “You don’t want to eat meat anymore? But why? I don’t get it,” she quizzed. “Does fish count?”

Those were some difficult Thanksgivings, with my family members struggling to find a centerpiece meal for me that didn’t include turkey or sausage stuffing cooked inside the bird. Needless to say, mom and dad rest a little easier now that I eat turkey again—and I just make sure it’s a free-range bird that produces what a friend dubs “happy meat.”

Back to the confused mother. She’s been pretty darn content each year with the same turkey her mother likely bought during her childhood Thanksgivings. When the family came to my Denver home two years ago for the holiday dinner, I did my best to convince her that the added expense would make a difference.

The logic of going free range is definitely a head-scratcher for some. Convincing non-believers, such as my family, can prove difficult. In the end, the turkey is having its head lopped off, after all. How humane is that?

But think of the days, weeks and years leading up to their demise. It may be naive to think these birds are living in luxury akin to “The Fabulous Lifestyles of Turkeys,” but for the un-initiated, free-range turkeys are raised on farms that allow access to the outside. Seems like that should be a given, but it’s not, especially at large turkey farms that make the bulk of their profits each November.

Do a bit more research and find Thanksgiving centerpiece that is certified organic and antibiotic free (Whole Foods is a good place to start). You’ll be serving a bird fed a robust vegetarian diet that didn’t include what makes Major League Baseball players hit homeruns with the frequency of stoplights turning red during rush hour. That’s a good thing, by the way.

So come Thanksgiving this year, I’ll champion once again for one of those happy turkeys, even if it means financing it on the Amex.

Granted, there are plenty out there who argue that even my beloved free-range birds still live a life of relative confinement and are in fact murdered. Since the world isn’t going vegetarian anytime soon, at least pick the farms that implore the best practices possible.

Beyond that, I swear the turkey tastes so much better. Maybe the added flavor is all in my head; thinking about turkeys prancing around pristine open space makes for a better meal. Either way, each bite just hits the spot that much more (and the meat is typically a little more lean).

I give bonus points for adding a few pieces of organic bacon to the top of the bird while it roasts. Yes it adds calories and a little fat, but the taste is worth it.

So when we’re at my dinner table this year saying our thanks, I’ll be thankful for a natural centerpiece to our meal. Images of turkeys dancing in freedom will fill my head. And I’m pretty sure the bird would tell us he’s happy he lived a good life—at least for a little while.

The post Happy Turkeys For Us appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.