For the past few years, we've tried
snow-birding in winter, meaning we go somewhere warm in January or February to escape from the frigid cold. This year, we decided to try
summer-birding to get away from the horrendous heat, humidity, and mosquitoes. So we spent the entire month of August in Boulder, Colorado.
I rented a townhouse on Pearl Street, right in the historic downtown area. This neighborhood is a very colorful mix of historic Victorian houses and modern condos.
I don't think Boulder has any zoning restrictions besides height (I didn't see any buildings over 3 stories tall). But they definitely don't have any restrictions on width or style, because people built modern additions onto the back of those Victorian houses smack up against each other. You'd think that a house in Colorado would have wonderful mountain views, but the units are so jam-packed together that whenever we looked out our windows all we saw was the parking lot and the condo next door.
There were lots of restaurants in the neighborhood, but rather than outdoor tables, most of them only offered a narrow counter to sit at if you were eating outside. The waitresses had to go outside the railings (onto the public part of the sidewalk) to take and deliver your order. It was OK if you were eating alone, but if you were with friends, it was difficult to talk while sitting side-by-side.
Boulder Creek was a very popular attraction, especially on really hot days. I often saw people wading in the water in an effort to cool down. Lots of people took inner tubes to the creek, but while it was flowing pretty briskly, it was way too shallow to do any floating or rafting.
The hiking trails were very rocky, but it wasn't until my 3rd or 4th hike that I realized many of the rocks were actually chunks of pink and white quartz. I never saw any slabs big enough to build a kitchen counter top, but Bruce picked up a few samples to bring home.
Overall I met my goal of being able to get outside in August. While it was just as hot in Boulder as it was in St Louis (in the 90's), the significantly lower humidity made it feel much cooler. Plus we never saw a tick or mosquito the whole time we were there.
But no place is perfect. I kept wondering why so many of my pictures came out looking hazy (notice the background mountains in this photo) until another hiker remarked about all the smoke in the air (I thought it was water vapor... duh, you need humidity for water vapor!). It seems this has been an exceptionally bad summer for forest fires in the west, but the smoke has gravitated to the east side of the Rocky Mountains. I guess this was a good year to stay away from the Northwest.
