Boulder

Last week I went to Boulder, Colorado, for a conference for work. (I got this picture from a postcard, in case you're wondering how I suddenly got to be such a great photographer.) I love it when work sends me to cool places like Boulder. I've been looking forward to this conference all year because it's a great conference, and also because Boulder is one of my favorite cities. The city is networked with a series of bike/pedestrian trails, so no car is needed. The trails go underneath all the major streets and many of the minor streets, which I LOVE because I don't have to hope that some psycho driver won't try to turn without looking both ways. For someone like me who prefers walking to driving, Boulder is Mecca.

This bike trail (the Boulder Creek Path) goes straight from the city into the Flatiron Mountains (about two miles from the university or downtown), and from there, there are about fifty mountain trails. There are trails for all levels: easy ones that follow creeks, semi-hard ones that go up into the hills, and difficult ones that go up to the top of the mountains. The air is thin, though, which always comes as a surprise to me. It feels like I'm hiking in slow motion, while there are people JOGGING past me straight up the mountains!

I've hiked most of the smaller mountains near Boulder on previous trips, so this time I was REALLY looking forward to conquering one of the larger mountains! I'd been psyching myself up for it for months and had even planned out my route. I was SO disappointed when, after having beautiful weather on Wednesday and Thursday (the days of the conference), it was SNOWING in Boulder on Friday!!! It was August 15th! IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO SNOW!!! Especially after our long winter, the mere sight of snow was depressing. The snow in Boulder turned into hard rain later in the morning (although they were closing roads north of us because of blizzard conditions). It rained hard all weekend and temperatures never got above the mid-40s, plus there were flood conditions and flash flood warnings for Boulder, so I decided not to hike the big mountain after all (although I was still tempted!).












I did get into the mountains once, on Thursday after the conference ended. These are some pictures from Royal Arch on Green Mountain.

When I flew out of Denver on Sunday afternoon, it was 47 degrees. When I landed in Spokane three hours later, it was 109. I had to buy a coat in Colorado, since I hadn't exactly been prepared for winter weather, so then I had to tote my new coat home on the bus. I got some funny looks.