Ryan, our son, attended law school in Boulder, Colorado some years back, so we made several trips to the city during that time and always enjoyed it. Now our youngest daughter Adrienne is about to graduate from the University here, so we’ve made additional visits during her 4 years in town.
We arrived this morning from Colorado Springs and set up camp in Longmont, at the ONLY place within 30 minutes drive of campus: the Boulder County Fairgrounds, which has a decent, though nothing fancy, parking lot with electric hook-ups, water, a dump station, a bathroom and garbage AND recycling cans. The latter is important because the Seattle area where we live is seriously into recycling, but Baja Mexico, California, Arizona and New Mexico are not. So we’ve been carrying a box of beer bottles and crushed aluminum cans for quite awhile that we’re happy to have disposed of today.
We spent the afternoon at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) just up a hill from the city. The NCAR is a federally funded center engaged in research and development in the atmospheric and related sciences, funded primarily by the National Science Foundation and working in conjunction with 60 universities around the country as well as numerous partners worldwide.
We learned a lot about the study of atmospheric influences and related topics including climate, weather, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and the cryosphere. The attractive facility was built 50 years ago, designed by world-renowned architect I.M. Pei, and it has stood the test of time remarkably well in our view.
Later we parked near the Pearl Street pedestrian mall and sat at an outdoor table for a beer and shared salad. When the wind died down at times, we were happy in the 68 degree sun. It’s a lively, interesting place for people-watching, and we enjoyed the afternoon. Tomorrow we’ll see our daughter Adrienne and meet her boyfriend Justin for the first time.
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