Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Everybody Likes Boulder

Everybody likes Boulder and we could see why. It has the  university and art and nature and shopping. It is walkable and bike-able. When we were there the temperature was mostly pleasant.

We ate pizza in a microbrewery in the outdoor Pearl Street Mall. Later, we joined many others in a stroll in the comfortable evening air. There is a shop that specializes in Swiss Army Knives. Supposedly there is a neat museum in the back but the place was closed. We thought the display in the shop window was interesting. It was stripped trees, made to stand and as you can see, they had stuck Swiss Army knives all in them.

There are lots of bike paths in Boulder and we were interested to see this bike rental station. Notice it is powered by the sun. There are return stations all over.


 We enjoyed a walk along the Boulder Creek path that begins here.


It had been raining more than usual and there was still snow melt run-off and so the creek was flooding in places. This bench might not be your best choice of seats.



The wildflowers along the path were lovely and entirely new plants to us.


Cottonwood and other trees lined the way. Here are two giant cottonwoods. Sadly, it was rotten between them. 


A fish observatory is built into the bank of the creek. Because  of the flooding, it was full of mud by the windows. But the water was so turbulent, you could not see anything anyway.


The white in the picture below is rushing water in the creek.


I'd say the only thing that I found disturbing about Boulder was the presence of teen beggars. Panhandlers are found in most places, but I am not used to seeing teens with signs. There were not great numbers of them, but they were out in the Pearl Street Mall. Other than that, it was a really attractive town.

1 comment:

Island Rider said...

When my husband and I visited Portland, Oregon a few years ago, there were a lot of teen beggers, mostly runaways we were told. If I hadn't kept a firm hand on him, my husband would have given away all our vacation money. It was very sad. Your vacation sounds wonderful. Thanks for sharing.