Tuesday in Colorado - A Stroll on Boulder Creek

Whitewater paddling right in the middle of town? OK I'm jealous! :D

This trip to Colorado was not just for outdoorsy fun, but to do some visiting with folks from my mom's side of the family, so after the great hike we took on Monday, we were interested in something a little more laid-back that my aunt could enjoy. My Denver-based cousin Rob and his wife Marcia had to work, but my cousin Elizabeth and her husband John, TQ and I, and Aunt Pat all piled into one car for another drive to Boulder. Once again Rob had had a very good suggestion for a place for a nice walk; I'd mentioned in the last post that towns and cities in this area are very committed to making outdoor recreation easily accessible, and in the town of Boulder this is expressed not only in the beautiful parks that lie just outside of the city, but also in a walking trail along Boulder Creek, which runs right through the middle of town.

The picture above was maybe my favorite thing from the hike! Whitewater kayaking is always such a distant possibility for NYC dwellers because you have to travel pretty far to get to any, but here in Boulder paddlers have it a little easier - we saw the guys pictured above enjoying the spring runoff partway through our walk, just upstream from the Boulder Public Library, where we parked. The concept of having whitewater right where you live without actually having to live out in the woods somewhere was kind of amazing.

They've done a great job of preserving (or possibly restoring, there was gold in this area and gold mining is very hard on the environment; I didn't think of this in Boulder but the town of Breckenridge had some interesting signs about that, which I'll share in a future post) this river, it's beautiful, with a section diverted and dammed just for kids to fish in. Start 'em young! :D

Speaking of gold, the statue is of Chief Niwot, who was a leader of the local Arapaho when gold was discovered. Terrible story, he just wanted his people to be able to live in peace with the miners who were coming for the gold, but in the end they were attacked and killed by US soldiers while peacefully encamped near a fort that was supposed to protect them. Click here for an article which is specifically about an exhibit that was done a few years back, but delves into the history pretty well. This may seem like a strange thing to bring up in the middle of an otherwise cheery post but I am always interested in the history of a place I'm visiting, and this is part of it.

After our stroll, we had some pretty darned good pizza at Boss Lady Pizza - we were just looking for a quiet place to sit down, rest our feet, and have a bite, and my aunt spotted the pizza place after the Mexican restaurant we'd originally gone to turned out to be extremely loud. Boss Lady was much more peaceful. I don't consider myself a pizza snob but you just can't really live in NYC as long as I have without getting a little spoiled, pizzawise, and I wasn't expecting much of Boulder pizza, but in addition to being a pleasant, quiet place to sit and chat and nosh, the place turned out to make a very respectable slice! Nice crispy crust, and an adventurous assortment of toppings; I tend to be pretty conservative with my pizza toppings, if nothing else, but there was a buffalo chicken with chipotle thing that somebody else had that just smelled so good I ended up going back and splitting a slice of that with TQ - and it was delicious!

In a funny but that-makes-sense kind of twist - I don't know if he was owner or staff, but the guy that was working there turned out to be from Long Island.

Last three shots: TQ spotted a Kailua sticker in the parking lot at the library, so I had to take a picture of that; there was a spectacular sunset on the drive home, and then Rob and Marcia's new kitty was just being so cute at the end of the day I had to take some pictures.

Another great day in Colorado. Click on the first pic for a slideshow view.