Boulder,
Colorado, USA 2000
The
8th and final stop on my second 2000 Round-The-World trip
This Travelogue is
Incomplete
This
stop in Boulder is an unusual one for me.
I actually have an agenda for this visit: to decide if Boulder is a
place that I would like to move to. I
am very tired of Seattle, the incredible growth the city has experienced, the
traffic, and especially the rain.
Everything I have heard about Boulder is amazing, so it is time to check
it out.
[For
those of you that are keeping track, I have jumped directly from Thailand, stop
#4 on my round the world trip, to Boulder, Colorado, USA, stop #8 with nothing
in between. In the middle I stopped in
Washington D.C., Boston, and Pittsburgh to visit with family and friends, so I
have not reported on those trips.]
Sunday May 28,
2000
A
delayed flight getting out of Pittsburgh meant a missed connection in
Chicago. Nonetheless, I was able to
make it to Denver International Airport, and there rent a car to drive to
Boulder. As usual, I'm renting from National Car Rental because they are the
cheapest of the big rental firms. Usually I find that National's cars are very
good and very inexpensive, but that the people who work there are
unbearable. This time they were
extremely nice and helpful. What a marvelous change! A half hour drive got me to Boulder and the Hotel Bolderado,
smack dab in the middle of the oldest, most central part of Boulder.
<history>. I finally got to sleep
around 2am Boulder time, which is 4am east coast time.
Monday May 29,
2000
I
tried to sleep as late as I could to catch up from the late night and get onto
local time. It worked halfway; I stayed
in bed a long time, but the last couple hours were very fitful.
>>
Beautiful, clear skies, sunny and hot.
>>Buy
books at the Boulder Bookstore on the pedestrian mall of Pearl St., the heart
of Boulder, then coffee and an excellent scone at the Book End Café, next door.
>>
Walk up and down Pearl, then over to the Boulder Creek Fair. Fun time at the fair.
>>
Back to the hotel for a bit, change room to quieter room that is not right on
the street.
>>
Drive around town a bit
>>
back to the fair, watching live music.
Small world: one of the head-liners is a woman that I had seen
performing in Byron Bay, Australia in February!
>>
Dinner at the Boulder Café. 1247 Pearl St (303-444-4884)
>>
Watching street performers on Pearl St.
>>
Exhausted, crash out at 9pm.
Tuesday May
30, 2000
Breakfast:
Mountain Joe's Café, 1410 Pearl St
Laundry
at corner of Boulder & University
Lunch:
Zolo Grill, 2525 Arapahoe St - Mediocre
Drive
to 2 places
Boulder
falls
Dinner:
Sushi Zanmai, 1221 Spruce St, next to Hotel Bolderado. Very good.
Wednesday May
31, 2000
Breakfast:
Bookend Café, bagel and coffee
Rent
bike at Dooby's 1505 Pearl St. Really nice
guy, very new shop, not much choice or inventory.
Lunch
at Canyon Creek farmers market
Ride
bike up creek
Ride
Historic walking tour
Find
really cool bike shop: University Bike Shop
Drive
to Denver, leave at the peak of rush hour, 5:30pm. Downtown Boulder to Downtown Denver, 45 minutes. Unthinkable to drive Tacoma to Seattle at
5:30.
Walk
around 16th street mall & Larimar square area
Leo
Kottke and Cowboy Junkees at the Fillmore
Drive
back
Thursday June
1, 2000
Breakfast:
Bookend Café, cherry oatmeal and coffee
I
feel lousy, I think it is altitude sickness
Sit
and read book for a long time at the Bookend
Drive
to NCAR
Very
interesting. Great views
To
U District, lunch at fun & popular La Iguana restaurant. Taquitos, yummy
Walk
around U District. Fun area. Pretty unpopulated since school is out.
Sit
on lawn at CU and read
Drive
to Chautauqua park. Sit and read
Dinner
at Chautauqua Dining Hall, a local institution (900 Baseline Road). Excellent.
Walnut encrusted goat cheese salad followed by nice lamb dish.
Free
concert at the Fox theatre on 13th in the U District. Very fun crowd, nice space.
Friday June 2,
2000
Breakfast
at the Bookend café.
Drive
to Estes Park. Estes Park Info Center
has the nicest, most helpful information people ever (except that they are not
allowed to recommend a restaurant.)
Lunch
at The Mountaineer, 505 S St. Vrain Rd, Estes Park. Club sandwich, good.
Drive
through beautiful Rocky Mountain National Park (entrance fee $10). Amazing
drive on Trail Ridge Road, including crossing the continental divide. 50 miles along the highest continuous
highway in the United States, ended at Grand Lake. Turned around and went back.
Total time, about 6 hours. A
long day of driving
Dinner
at Sawaddee Restaurant (1630 B 30th St). Quite expensive and not at
all good. I am a serious critic of Thai food, and this was not good. The wall
is covered with "Best of Boulder" awards. This is not a good sign for
my moving to Boulder if the best Thai restaurant in town is bad.
Saturday June
3, 2000
Rented
a bike at University Bicycles, 839 Pearl St.
A fantastic bike shop with huge selection of things to buy and much
better bikes for rent. Really helpful
and friendly staff. Went on an awesome
bike ride, first up to the university and around the campus, then down to the
Canyon Creek bike path and out to the west edge of town. Prairie dogs.
Lunch
at the Dushanbe Teahouse; cold ginger soba noodles with chicken.
Hang
out at Rhumba (950 Pearl St), a really cool, fun, funky bar. Had an amazing drink made from rum (of
course) crushed limes, crushed fresh mint, sugar and soda water. Yum.
Also had an excellent appetizer of seared tuna.
Dinner
at Redfish (2027 13th St, 303-440-5858). Creole shrimp and crawfish etouffe combo. Very good, though the shrimp did not taste
super-fresh and overall it was not spicy enough. Had a really good Angry Monk Belgian style Ale.
Did
a pub crawl, the Catacombs in the basement of the Hotel Boulderado (has
separate closed off areas for smokers), Conor O'Neill's, the West End Tavern
with a cool rooftop patio.
Sunday June 4,
2000
Breakfast:
Lucile's, 2124 14th St (303-442-4743). An interesting take on eggs benedict: poached eggs on top of pan
seared trout with bernaise sauce.
Served with grits, hash browns, and a huge piece of some kind of
biscuit. Yum
Drive
to Eldorado Canyon State Park. Full
up. Drove to Golden, lunch at Woody's
Wood Fired Pizza. V Good.
Hike
Gold Gate Canyon State Park
Dinner
at Q's, in the hotel. Attractive place, very highly reviewed. 3 appetizers.
Gazpacho with shrimp dumplings. Not
very good, shrimp tasted fishy. Seared
Fois Gras on a bed of dried cherries.
Not good. Fusisli pasta with
morel mushrooms, scallops and lobster tossed in a lobster infused butter
sauce. Just OK. A very expensive meal in a "fine"
restaurant, extremely disappointing and not recommended.
Monday June 5,
2000
Breakfast:
Bookend café
Sit
around, read book. A lovely day to do
absolutely nothing. Boulder is an
excellent place to enjoy a day of rest.
Dinner:
Hapa Sushi Grill (303-473-4730) Fun,
funky, happening place with mod music. Very stylish. Unfortunately, the sushi is just OK, and does not hold a candle
to Sushi Zanmai.
Tuesday June
6, 2000
Breakfast:
Lucile's
Hang
out.
Met
Dave "the Zipcode Man". Went
for great hike just 4 minutes outside of town.
Beautiful views down over the town
Dinner:
Panasia Noodle, 1175 Walnut St.
Watched
Dave do his amazing Zipcode memory act on the Pearl St. mall.
Wednesday June
7, 2000
Packed
up and headed out to the airport.
Unfortunately, serious road construction on route 36 created a 5 mile
traffic jam, and used up all of my margin of error getting to the airport. I made my flight, but it was closer than I
would have liked.
Well,
this is the end of another two months of travel, circumnavigating the
globe. It is good to be going home, but
I am less and less convinced that Seattle is where I want to live.