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!
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