I believe last week or so I mistakenly said that Bike to Work Day was June 22. It’s not. It’s June 23, tomorrow. It’s always a Wednesday.

That errata cleared up, it’s time to play Walk and Bike Bingo!

How do you play? Well, first off, you download a Bingo card. Print it out. Tomorrow morning, put on your walking shoes or get on your bike to visit participating destinations. How do you know they’re participating destinations? They’ll have a poster that looks much like this one that Tee & Cakes are displaying in their window. (They’re also listed on the linked info page.) Walk on in and ask for a stamp on your Bingo card–and just your Bingo card, right? You can’t bring a handful of friends’ cards and get them all stamped. The whole point is to get more people walking and biking, right?–on any square of the card you like. Repeat until you’ve got five in a row.

Then, sometime before Friday, find yourself a Drawing Box and insert your card. (Don’t forget to complete the contact info stuff on the back/page 2.) Drawing Boxes may be found at all Recreation Centers and Library Branches in Boulder, and also at Pedal to Properties round about 20th and Pearl Street. After July 16th, check the GO Boulder website to see if you’ve won a prize.

Don’t forget to thank the merchants you visit for being bike-and-pedestrian friendly!

And don’t forget the other annual features of Bike to Work Day. Register as a participant (you could win a cruiser!), visit any one of the 45 breakfast stations throughout town serving free morning meals between 7 and 9 AM to those on bike or foot, and hang out after work at the 4th Annual Bike Shorts Film Fest and Ice Cream Social ($6 admission benefits Community Cycles Youth Earn-A-Bike program). Visit the Community Cycles page for more details about these events and other things you can do to celebrate and support Bike to Work Day.

The construction equipment trucks were making the rounds this morning, heading slowly down Pearl Street and turning the corner on 14th. At certain businesses, here and there, they stopped to unload chevron-style barricades and orange traffic cones. They erected barriers around those parking spaces labeled “Special Event 10AM – 2PM”. Business owners and staff waved their thanks–and began making magic happen inside the barricades.

In front of 14th Street businesses Tee & Cakes, Cefiori, and Kristen Lewis Architects, tall pennant-style flags went up on telescoping poles. Real grass turf unrolled to turn four angled parking spaces into a barefoot-inviting lawn. Deck chairs and picnic tables under a portable shade tent presented coffee, cupcakes, and information about the solar power that was chilling the spring water in the wagon parked to the side.

It was all part of Park(ing) Spaces Day in Boulder, when businesses reclaimed parking spaces and showed how they could accommodate humans rather than cars for a few hours. The resulting atmosphere was something like a sidewalk sale, what with the free samples and discounts and informational brochures, but also something like Earth Day, what with the theme of ecologically responsible practices. And of course the whole celebration was part of the annual Walk & Bike Month festivities, which will be going on all during June. Bike to Work Day, specifically, will be June 22. (More about that as we get closer to the date.)

Park(ing) Spaces exhibits will be up until 2:00 PM today. The Cycling in Boulder blog has made a map available showing where all the exhibits are; there’s also a list up at both the Tee & Cakes blog entry and the event announcement previously linked. Get out there and enjoy it before everyone packs up and goes back to parking as usual!

Hopefully no one panicked when they heard the sirens howling yesterday. That was just the regularly scheduled test of the countywide emergency system.

If you hear them today, though, you should take them seriously. Thanks to recent hot weather causing massive amounts of snow to thaw, Boulder Creek is running at three times its normal volume. The high water washed out parts of the bridge near the Red Lion Restaurant today, thanks mainly to a bunch of debris that collected thereabouts, and if the bridge goes completely we could be talking about a major flood surge.

Thunderstorms predicted for the afternoon are not improving the situation.

Remember those blue dots on the trees and buildings in and around the park downtown? Those marked the water level reached by the 500 year flood.

Hopefully things won’t get that bad. Crews have begun clearing away the debris to prevent the bridge collapsing all the way. But in the meantime, stay safe. Even if you weren’t among the residents or businesses receiving reverse-911 calls, you should heed the warning those calls delivered: Stay away from the creek. Stay off the bike path along the creek.

And, much as it pains me to say it, don’t go to the library. (The north side of the library and the bridge are closed in light of the flood warning, by the way.)

Follow the link above to the Daily Camera story for more details and updates as they are made known. Here’s that link again:

http://www.dailycamera.com/ci_15251059

Stay safe, y’all.