Brenda Mortensen slips on her walking shoes and heads out for her latest self-imposed assignment: walking Lovers Lane.
“I didn’t even realize I was doing Lovers Lane right before Valentine’s Day,” she said with a laugh.
Mortensen’s stroll up Lovers Lane will join the 15 other Manitou street treks she’s already walked and photographically documented in her All the Streets Goal, a social media project she started in January.
“There are 182 streets in Manitou,” she said. “I’ve only done about 10 percent so far.”
A speech pathologist, Mortensen usually starts hoofing it around 5:30 p.m., when she’s home from work.
“It’s been dreary out lately, and I haven’t gotten out much,” she said. “I thought I needed something to motivate me.’
Mortensen’s approach to exploration has taken her to visiting America’s national parks. She’s hit all but 16 for a project she’s dubbed “63 by 63.”
Of course, having lived in Manitou since 2017, she already has driven many of the streets. But walking and photographing methodically gives her a new perspective, and a new appreciation for the town.
She started on her own street — Grand Avenue — and then started strolling up the nearby streets of the valley’s “sunny side.”
“There’s so much to see in our own hometown that you don’t notice driving,” she said.
“Like that!” she said, pointing to a tiny door on the side of the large Victorian Ogilbee House (built in 1900) at the corner of Cañon and Washington avenues, on her way to Lovers Lane. She asked the owner, Jean Garrity, who happened to be out in her yard, about the door. Garrity laughed, shrugged and said it’s just an odd storage room.
The quirks, oddities and artistic touches on homes and in yards keep Mortensen fascinated on her walks.
“What people do with their homes is so special,” she said. “We have such creative people here, and they often express it in their houses and their yards.
“There’s a good example,” she said, pointing to the sign outside the Lover’s Lane Chalet. “I have to wonder why ‘Lane’ is backwards.”
On her Facebook post (#allthestreetsgoal), she also noted that “these people take the theme of their street to the next level with heart cutouts on the railing and hearts on the garage.”
She also shared her fascination with the backs of the Manitou Avenue buildings.
“Love the corrugated metal from long ago,” she wrote over her photos.
We have such creative people here. – Brenda Mortensen
Mortensen is a noticer. She takes in the subtle details around her, the way the light gleams on the slush-covered road, a family gathered for dinner and seen through a picture window, the ruins of stone and cement walls from a home long gone, the magnificent views from atop Grant Street.
“I can’t wait to do the other side (of the valley), getting different perspectives and angles,” she said.
Her perspective, shared almost daily on Facebook, gives us all a broader and deeper look at this place we call home.