Thanks for such a great response.

Tiff:
The first one's gets its color partly from HDR and partly from the fact that it was taken at the "blue hour" that is, the time between sunset and dark.
--In the second one, the buildings were lit by the setting sun, I admit that in the HDR process I darkened the sky a tad, though it did start out pretty dark. Next time you have a cloudy, rainy day, look east around sunset time, you'll see that the sky might seem kinda dark and the golden hour light really brings things alive.

ChowChi: You're in Spokane?? I thought you were on the nice half of the state.

John:
Shoot me an email or call me while in Spokane, a friend just showed me a pretty sweet downhill park. And here's a slightly shorter crop: