Boulder Couch Crash and the Flagstaff Fire

The last few days have been so much fun and full of memories! The Boulder Couch Crash festivities kicked off Friday night at a bar called The Dark Horse. I talked to a lot of people, some from the Boulder area and others from places like Omaha, Minneapolis, Iowa City, and the Netherlands. I love going to things like this – where most people don’t know each other, but all love to travel and can talk for hours. Unfortunately my time was cut short since I’m not 21…

Saturday after going to the Farmers’ Market, everyone part of the Couch Crash got together then broke out into groups to do various activities. I decided to go on a brewery tour of Boulder Beer. Even though I can’t drink beer legally in the US, I do love it. Naturally, I was the only one who couldn’t drink and didn’t fully understand what the adorable British boy who was giving the tour was talking about. Probably because I was too caught up in his lovely accent. After reconvening we again broke out to do different activities. I went to the Dushanbe Tea House, which was given to the city of Boulder by their sister city Dushanbe, Tajikistan. The interior is so beautiful and there are so many different tea drinks on the menu.

For dinner I met some people at H Burger, which had just opened a location in Boulder a few weeks before. Later that night I met my friend Elisabeth downtown and we walked on Pearl Street and came across a street performer I call “the zip code guy.” People would give him their zip code and he could place them on a map and tell them the exact town they were from. He knew towns I had never heard of and even knew the zip codes of towns in foreign countries. We then met a friend of Elisabeth’s who brought some of her friends and we all went to Sushi Zanmai, which has karaoke 10pm to midnight on Saturdays. Even though none of us sang, the atmosphere was really fun and I had a great time.

Sunday morning I woke up not feeling well, probably from the raw tuna I ate the night before. I just hung around the apartment all day since I didn’t feel that great, but I did go out that night to the weekly Boulder Couch Surfing Mixer. There were a lot more people this week since some were still there from the Couch Crash. At about 11pm some of us wanted to go somewhere else, so we went to this place called The Yellow Deli. It is owned by a cult that lives together outside of Boulder and operates this place 24 hours a day, but closes Friday at 3pm and reopens at noon on Sunday. They actually have several locations in North America.

Monday was my first day working at the Historic Boulder office and actually planning the tour of Gold Hill. I think it is going well so far! I’m meeting so many people that I’m starting to accidently run into people I know! For my lunch break I stopped in a place called Atlas Purveyors and saw my friend Andrew, whom I had met over the weekend and lives in Boulder.

That evening I went on a hike with Jordan and Brandon, two guys I had met at the Couch Crash. We went on a three-hour hike to Royal Arch in Chautauqua Park, which was so pretty and had amazing views. We were there at a great time of day – right after the sun had set. On the way we passed two people climbing up a Flatiron with no ropes or anything! I was so scared for them, but they were clearly experience. Still, just watching them made me nervous and didn’t want to watch incase they fell! When we left Royal Arch, we somehow got on the wrong trail and wasn’t on an “official trail.” It was a little scary and some parts were pretty steep. I was actually so afraid that my body was shaking for part of it. Looking back, it was probably better that we took that way because I think it would have been a lot steeper and for a lot longer if we had taken the way we came. After being on that little trail, having no clue where it was taking us besides down (which was good), it joined up with a bigger trail and eventually we found a map of where we were. At that point it was dark and kind of hard to see, but luckily it was pretty easy the rest of the way back. Once we got back Jordan and I went to The Sink, since it is probably the most famous restaurant in Boulder and he was leaving the next day.

Yesterday, when I was leaving my internship around 2:45pm I could see smoke coming from the mountains even though I was over 20 miles east and a little south of Boulder. When I had gone to lunch about 3.5 hours earlier there was no smoke. This was the first time I had seen smoke so I immediately called my mom to see if she could find anything online about a new fire, but she could not. As I was getting closer to my apartment, I just kept saying “Oh my God.” Once I got to South Boulder, it looked like the smoke was coming from right on the other side of mountain. I soon found out it was started by lightning from a brief storm a few hours before and fire did have a name (I don’t remember what it was originally), but as it grew it became the Flagstaff Fire. Flagstaff is the name of the mountain from which I saw the smoke coming from and the mountain I drove up one of my first days here. I decided to stay inside my apartment the rest of the day and was constantly checking Twitter and news websites for any updates. At one point I saw they where not letting anyone past a point that was only about 2 miles from my apartment and there was a pre-evacuation notice for neighborhoods near me. Me being a newbie to forest fires and overly cautious decided to get my most important stuff together incase I needed to leave. My wonderful boss, Dawn, even called to tell me I could come stay at her house 30 minutes away if I needed to. At one point I went outside to take out the trash and it smelled like I was standing next to a campfire. After a few hours of no change I decided I wanted to go to sleep, but before I did I signed up for evacuation text alerts and kept my phone on loud all night.

This morning I was glad to wake up and find that the fire hadn’t gotten any closer to the city. Unfortunately, the fire by Colorado Springs is getting a lot worse and has resulted in thousands of people having to evacuate. It rained in Boulder a little today (I did see some lightning though), but COLORADO NEEDS RAIN!

Tubing Boulder Creek, Downtown Denver, and Gold Hill

This past week has been lots of fun, trying new things and seeing new places! But first off, I am happy to announce I have a job volunteering for Historic Boulder as an event coordinator!!! There will be a few events I will help to plan in the upcoming months, but unfortunately I will not be here to attend any. Even though this means I do not have a paying job this summer, I am sure this volunteer job will look better on my resume than any job I could get would.

Last Sunday I went tubing on the Boulder Creek (apparently a must do in Boulder during the summer) with Katie and Megan, who I met a few days before, and their friends. The tubes were the inside of semi truck tires that are for sale at a gas station in Boulder. I had a lot of fun, but there was one part that was a little scary… So there are little waterfalls you go down on the tube and some are bigger than others. After going down several smaller ones with no problem, there was a bigger one I thought I could go down. The boys with us decided to skip it, but us girls went for it. I was the first one and fell off my tube. The water was going really fast and there were a lot of rocks, so the water carried me down the creek about 30 yards before I could stop (and the creek is pretty shallow!). I was so scared I was going to get my foot caught in the rocks on the bottom, but I only ended up with a few small bruises on my feet and shins. Luckily Katie and Megan didn’t fall, so they were able to catch my tube that was floating down the river without me. Overall, I’m glad I did it and I did have fun, but I don’t really feel the need to go through that again…

Sunday night was another CouchSurfing mixer and it was actually there that a guy, Nick, gave me the idea of looking for a volunteer job that involved event coordination. So Monday I looked online and pretty quickly I found that Historic Boulder was looking for an event coordinator! Later that day I attended a meeting with the executive director and some board members to discuss a walking tour of Gold Hill (more about it later) taking place in August.

Tuesday was my internship and Wednesday I went to downtown Denver. I went after rush hour and it only took me 30 minutes to get there. First, I went to the Denver Art Museum to see the Yves Saint Laurent, a haute couture fashion designer, exhibit. Katie and Megan had told me about it and since I appreciate fashion (I’m actually taking an intro to fashion merchandising class in the fall) I thought I would check it out. I absolutely loved it! I wish I could have taken pictures because everything was so beautiful. After looking at other parts of the museum, I walked over to 16^th Street, which is a pedestrian mall 1.25 miles long. At first I really liked it. There were lots of restaurants and some stores, but it just started to feel kind of repetitive to me and all the Greenpeace and Planned Parenthood people trying to get me to listen to them and sign stuff got annoying. There were not really any interesting stores or stores with character, mostly places you would find in a mall (i.e. H&M, Express, Ross). There is a street off of 16^th called Larimer St. that led to Larimer Square that I had heard was supposed to be cool and somewhat historic. I however did not find it cool or historic. There were a few restaurants that looked good, but other than that it was disappointing. I did have lunch at a place called The Market that is part coffee shop and part deli. It was average, not anything special.

That night, since it was the summer solstice, I thought I would go for a hike and try to see the sunset. Either I misjudged when the sun would set over the mountains, it was too cloudy, or both. I did get some cool shots of the mountains with the clouds, but I am determined to go hiking while watching the sunset!

Thursday I worked my internship from Boulder and spent some of the time at the Brewing Market near Pearl Street, where they have three different kinds of chai tea – regular, sweet, and spicy. That evening my new roommate, Yun, arrived. She is from New York City and just “graduated” from Cornell University, but is working on her masters thesis this summer in Boulder because she has to defend it in a few weeks to people who live and work in Boulder during the summer.

Today I went with some people from Historic Boulder up to Gold Hill, which is part of Boulder, but up an additional 3,000 feet and a 25-minute (gorgeous) drive from downtown. This was a popular place people came during the Gold Rush. One of the board members lives there, so he gave us a tour. He says if you took away the cars, it would look just like it did 100 years ago – there are no paved roads and most of the homes are log cabins. If you are ever visiting Boulder, I would suggest driving up there. The Gold Hill Store is a cafe that serves food every day (I think) 11am-4pm and The Gold Hill Inn serves a 3 or 6 course dinner every night except Tuesdays. Sundays are a popular night at the Gold Hill Inn as there is a band that plays and reservations are a must. The inside of the Gold Hill Inn is so quaint and authentic with wood floorboards, fireplaces and an overall old-time feel.

I am so beyond happy to have this job with Historic Boulder and am excited to be actually planning events. This weekend is the Boulder Couch Crash, where people from all over come to Boulder and there are events and such, so I will be participating in that. Here is the website if you want to learn more: http://bouldercouchcrash.com/

Getting To Know Boulder: My Adventures This Past Week

I have been here 12 days now and still no job! Wahhh L But I have been spending a lot of time on the internet searching for jobs! It is starting to feel like an extended vacation which isn’t a bad thing, but I would prefer to be spending my time productively and earning some cash. Plus Boulder doesn’t have that much to offer – it isn’t a big city. I have decided to write down what I do I in my planner, so that I’ll remember when I write my blog! Here’s are some highlights from the last week:

Saturday

I finally took my bike out and went to the farmers’ market. It’s only about a 5 minute ride and 95% on a bike path (no cars around). After being spoiled by Madison’s farmers’ market, I suppose I was a little disappointed. Compared to most cities’ farmers market I’m sure it is great, but it took me less than half the time to go through it than it would to go through Madison’s. There were a lot fewer bakeries for sure. Something that they had that Madison doesn’t are food stands to buy breakfast or lunch items.

Sunday

I visited Chautauqua Park, which is a popular trailhead for dozens of trails. I just started walking with a few trails in mind that I wanted to go on. At first it was quite populated, but the father I got the less people I saw. I had no map, but luckily there were maps posted every so often. It was a little nerve racking when I had no clue where I was or how far I was from my car and I started to worry that I would run out of water (I ended up having plenty left over), but after hiking a little over 2 hours I made it back. To most people this probably doesn’t seem a lot, but to me it seemed a lot longer than 2 hours and I’ve never really done any hiking before. All of the trails are so beautiful and have wonderful views of the Flatirons and the city.

That night I went to a CouchSurfing mixer at a restaurant downtown (if you don’t know what CouchSurfing is, look at my post from September 21, 2011). There were probably about 12-15 people, but I only had the chance to talk to about ¾ of them. Most people are relatively new to Boulder. One guy I talked to considers himself a veteran of the group and has only been in Boulder since January! Only two people in the whole group were actually from Colorado. In addition to me, two other guys had moved to Boulder within the last week.

Monday

I decided to do more exploring on my bike and took the Boulder Creek Path through Central Park, which had some of “interesting” people but also some nice benches along the creek. After going about 15 minutes I felt like I was getting out of city, so I turned around.

That evening I met with a girl, Elisabeth, for coffee who messaged me though CouchSurfing. She is from France and is a nanny for her cousin this summer. She was really fun to talk with and we discovered we have a lot of the same interests. We are hoping to go to some festivals and events together throughout the summer.

Tuesday

As soon as I went outside in the morning I could smell the High Park forest fire, which is near Fort Collins (a little over an hour from Boulder). I had my internship during the day, but that night the CouchSurfing group met for trivia night at Harpo’s, a sports bar. Even though I probably new less than a quarter of the answers, I had a lot of fun. After trivia was done, a lot of people where leaving Hapro’s and I noticed that about half rode their bike and half drove. It was kind of an “only in Boulder” moment!

Wednesday

For lunch I biked to Buchanan’s Coffee Pub on University Hill known as “The Hill.” It is located on the other side of the CU campus from where I live, but this neighborhood is where a lot of upperclassmen and graduate students live. It is especially popular because it is where all the bars are located.

Thursday

After a lazy morning, I went to Moe’s bagels and Vic’s coffee to read a book I started a few days before. It is called Without Reservations and is written by a woman who spent several months living independently in various European cities. I really love it so far!

I stopped at a store called Candy’s Vintage Clothing. It had a ton of great items, including costumes, but I didn’t buy anything since right now I don’t have a need for any vintage clothes.

Then I went for a short 50-minute hike in Chautauqua on the McClintock trail. It is probably one of my favorites because it isn’t too steep, has great views and is partly shaded.  

Friday

I met another girl through CouchSurfing for lunch, who also brought along her friend. Katie, Megan, and I went to a cheese shop, Cured, which has sandwiches, and shares the spaced with Boxcar Coffee. While I didn’t have the coffee, Katie and Megan said it was extremely strong and flavorful (it didn’t quite look like normal coffee).

Saturday (today)

I had an interview for a job at the Longmont Farmers’ Market (just under a 20 minute drive) at 8:00am and then I walked around the market, which was probably a little smaller than the one in Boulder. After sleeping for a few more hours, I went to Chautauqua and hiked for a little over an hour.

Right now I am at Trident Booksellers and Café on Pearl Street, a block from the pedestrian mall. When I walked through the pedestrian only part I noticed there are several street performers – more than on State Street in Madison. You could easily spend hours on the four pedestrian blocks going into stores and watching performers.

***

A few months ago I bought a book called The Insiders Guide to Boulder and Surrounding Areas. I read it cover-to-cover and hi-lighted places I wanted to visit. I then created a checklist in Word, called “Boulder Bucket List.” I have taped it up in my bedroom and look at it for ideas of things to do. Below are some images of the list. I had to scribble some things out because they closed.

I'm in Boulder!

So I am in Boulder, CO for the summer! For years I have thought Boulder seemed like a cool place to live because it is portrayed at outdoorsy and into eating organic – both which I love – and now is as best a time as ever since I am young and don’t have a job! A few months ago I found an apartment on Craigslist, which I’m sharing with a few other girls, and an internship with a company called The White List.

I left Madison with two of my friends, Mary and Amarette, on Sunday and arrived in Boulder on Monday. Unfortunately they had to leave Wednesday night, but we did a lot in the time they were here. Driving through eastern Colorado on our way to Boulder, we saw a farm that had well over a thousand cows – more than any of us had seen in one place before, which is kind of surprising since we all grew up in Wisconsin.

After moving into my apartment and a trip to Target (I realized it was my first time grocery shopping for myself – I have always either lived at home or had a meal plan at school), we went to Pearl Street, which is a pedestrian only street spanning about four blocks. It primarily consists of restaurants and shops, some of which we stopped in. After dinner at an Italian place on Pearl Street, we drove around the city. We ended up on this one road that took us partway up a mountain and to the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), which was designed by the architect I.M. Pei. It had stunning views of the city of Boulder.

Tuesday we went to Moe’s for extremely delicious bagels, and then took a free tour of the tea company Celestial Seasonings, which manufactures all of its tea in Boulder. We were able to go inside the factory and see the different stages in making the tea. The smells were so strong and delicious and so varied. We went into a room where all the peppermint is kept and the smell was so potent that it started to make my eyes water!

Mary recently started doing this scavenger hunt game with hidden stamps all over the world. People hide boxes with a stamp and notepad and post clues to find the box on a website. We found one in the parking lot of Celestial Seasonings and another one that had Harry Potter themed clues. To find the later one we had to hike up a mountain, which offered great views of the NCAR. Next we drove up Flagstaff Mountain, which had lot of hairpin turns. There were many places to stop and take pictures of the stunning view of the city. At the summit we walked around a bit and took more pictures. After coming back down, we had a late lunch at The Sink, which is probably Boulder’s most famous restaurant (Robert Redford worked there while he attended college). We did some more driving around and stopped in front of Mork and Mindy’s house. We drove into Northern Boulder and saw some gorgeous houses.

Wednesday we got an early start (left my apartment at 6:45am) to drive to Colorado Springs. We all really wanted to go up Pike’s Peak, but I was a little hesitant to drive up it because my guidebook talked about shifting into lower gears and I didn’t know to do that. Luckily, there is a train that goes up it, so we booked tickets Monday night for it. The views from the train were so amazing and at the top it was unbelievable. You can definitely notice a difference in breathing! Luckily we brought sweatshirts because it was pretty cold, but while we were in shorts most people had on pants. Roundtrip, including our time at the top, took a little over 3 hours.

 

Next on our list was the Olympic Training Facility in Colorado Springs. It was a pretty cool (free!) tour and we saw gyms, pools, and shooting ranges where Olympians train. Our guide said Michael Phelps was there training, but we didn’t see him. After a quick trip to Ikea I dropped Amarette and Mary off at the airport. Driving away I suddenly felt really alone for the first time. I really only know one person right now – my roommate, Maddie. Another roommate is only at the apartment on the weekends and the third is moving in soon.

Yesterday was the first day of my internship and this morning I had an interview for a job in Celestial Seasoning’s gift shop (cross your fingers I will get it – I find out next week).

Here are some things I have realized about Boulder so far:

•  There aren’t any “ghetto” or bad areas of Boulder, or any that I have come across yet.
•  You can get almost anywhere in Boulder in less than 15 minutes. Usually less than 10. I might be crazy though…
• There really are a lot of bikers. I haven’t gone biking yet partly because I’m still getting to know the city and I’m afraid I’ll get lost. Partly because it has been too hot!
• It is really hot here! Or at least it has been lately, but at least it’s a dry heat and not humid. I thought since it is in the mountains it would be a little cooler, but I guess not.
• So many people are from Wisconsin! I have seen numerous license plates and University of Wisconsin stickers (one was at my apartment complex!). Also, just today I met a girl that works at the Celestial Seasonings gift shop from near Fon Du Lac and the guy who showed me around my new gym was from Merrill and lived in Madison for a little bit.
•  You can always see the mountains, which I love! 

It's been pretty funny to see people's reaction when I tell them I just moved here on Monday and don't know anyone here! Tomorrow I’m hoping to bike to the farmer’s market and do some more hiking this weekend! If anyone wants to come visit me I’ll pick you up at the Denver airport and I have an air mattress you can sleep on!