As we drove, the Front Range peaks gradually separated themselves from the gloom, and we could pick them out one after another – Longs, Meeker, Evans, Grays, Torreys, Pikes Peak, Arapaho, Audubon. The western horizon evolved into the familiar backdrop we hadn't seen for eleven years, except for brief glimpses through airplane windows. Heading northwest towards Boulder, we note the changes to the landscape – far more houses, more stores, more malls, more hotels. Then, the final rise over the hill, and – The View appears; Boulder, carefully nestled in its wreath of parkland and greenbelt, foothills just behind, the Flatirons shooting up out of the plains. (Sorry, too busy driving, didn't take pictures.)
Boulder is more crowded, more built up, lots of construction going on. The trees along the Pearl Street Mall are eleven years bigger. Most of the familiar landmarks are still there, but some aren't... like the place we got up at 5:00 to eat breakfast at. No more Pour La France, apparently. Plan B: Rocky Mountain Joe's, further down the Pearl Street Mall... uh, no, it's not there anymore either. And it looks like there aren't currently a whole lot of breakfast-oriented places to eat along the mall, so we end up munching pastries in the cafe of the Boulder Bookstore. (A Pretty Good Bookstore, btw. Not Powells or the Tattered Cover, but generally good coverage on most subject areas. Points deducted for excess New-agey hoo-hah.)
As M. and I munch, we compare notes on the changed city. Relative to graduate student days, the town seems richer. There are lots of new, expensive-looking apartments and condos, lots of investment banking services, lots of shops selling absurdly expensive posh clothing. If possible, even more shops selling Tibetan and Nepalese trinkets than before. The same New-agey hoo-hah, but more of it. Boulder – this end of it, anyway – feels just a little bit like Aspen, a hyperrich boutique mountain town. It doesn't seem like the sort of place we would have lived for as long as we did.
A quick drive up to the Chautauqua dining hall, a last look at the Flatirons, and then down route 93 past Rocky Flats to Coors-swilling Golden; a sharp right onto route 6 and we enter the mountains, climbing up the canyon of Clear Creek towards Idaho Springs and the Interstate. Catching the winding-mountain-road bug, we exit I-70 so that we can drive over Loveland Pass. We paused at the summit and remembered Hey! We brought a camera! and took a picture looking back:
Posted by David Fleck at 07 September 2006 07:31 AM
Damn, that view from Loveland looks good.
My kingdom for a hill.
Posted by: Jonathan on September 7, 2006 01:41 PM
Yup. It's easy to curse them when they're around, but once you've been exiled to the flatlands, you sure do miss 'em.
Posted by: David Fleck on September 7, 2006 07:38 PM
Jonathan - you would have been impressed by the bicycle, too. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a fatigued-looking man, head down. At first I assumed he might be feeling light-headed, or nauseated, as people do up there, sometimes. Then I noticed he was sitting next to his bicycle.
Saw a bunch of other cyclists on the way up, as we headed down westward.
Posted by: Moira on September 7, 2006 07:48 PM
Ha! I visited in July for a big ride with some friends. Terrible weather, cold, rain, hypothermia. We quit and never made it to Loveland. That photo reminds me of what we missed.
Posted by: Jonathan on September 7, 2006 08:42 PM