Plexiglass Man, Boulder, Co
Colorado: the word still jumps up and holds magic for me. I first came to Colorado when I was a shy 17-year-old, wanting to spend a year somewhere interesting before university. Nothing in my life had prepared me for a place like Boulder. It was a utopian wonder. This college town of 95,000 is usually on the top ten list of best places to live and it’s easy to see why. Boulder embodies everything from American life that is ideal, joyful, worldly, conscientious, progressive, deserving of fondness, and wacky. It’s Jimmy Stewart’s Bedford Falls with an edge. Other than all the intellectuals, environmentalists, social activists and Buddhists, it attracts a lot of eccentrics: New Agers, topless women, mountain men down from the mountains for a falafel and a bath, and a lot of naked stuff: someone called Naked Guy, World Naked Bike Ride, and people who run naked through downtown with a pumpkin on their head every Halloween. There’s also the “Q-tip” people—a cult of survivalists living in the nearby mountains who dress entirely in white with little white turbans. You see them occasionally on the streets of Boulder and they really do look like giant Q-tips.
Boulder gets more sunshine than any place in the country. A greenbelt protects the city from suburban development and the mountains sweep right down into people’s backyards. You can take a walk from your house and, depending on where you live, find yourself all alone in the mountains—with perhaps a herd of elk nearby—within ten minutes. The pedestrian mall downtown is always brimming with life: buskers, musicians, tarot card readers, a guy who can curl his lanky body into a 20-inch Plexiglas box, and ZIP Code Man, who can pinpoint exactly where you live when you holler out your zip code. The mall is also full of cheerful people strolling or reading books or talking at the outdoor cafes and restaurants. Everyone is beaming with health and everyone is crazily attractive, sometimes so much so that you crave to see just one ugly person walking down the street. I once met an Ontario couple who told me they moved to Boulder but had to leave because everyone was too happy. It was too much for them. I thought about this the other day when I arrived in Boulder and saw those same vibrantly happy people all over town. I wondered if this kind of happiness is sustainable. Are people here really happier than people who live in say, Buffalo or Regina? I suspect they are. Most of the people who live in Boulder come from someplace else, have had the gumption to get up and look for a better place, have left the french fries and Tim Hortons, and crappy weather behind, making it one of those cream of the crop places you come across almost always in scenically gorgeous settings. On a hike the other day in the Boulder foothills, my friend Aliah—who has spent years searching for the perfect place to live (no wonder we’re friends)—told me Boulder is the place she has settled on. “It’s just always so consistently positive and alive here. There’s always something creatively wacky and fun going on.”
She’s right. It was like that when I was 17 and it’s still like that now. I wonder why I didn’t stay for good. It must have had something to do with those good-looking people all over town—they are a little much. (But to get an idea of all the wacky stuff that makes Boulder, Colorado so great, see: Keep Boulder Weird.)
Meanwhile, I’m staying at my sister’s place for a few days just north of Boulder, in Fort Collins, another college town also full of cool stuff.
CLICK TO ENLARGE PHOTOS:
Boulder gets more sunshine than any place in the country. A greenbelt protects the city from suburban development and the mountains sweep right down into people’s backyards. You can take a walk from your house and, depending on where you live, find yourself all alone in the mountains—with perhaps a herd of elk nearby—within ten minutes. The pedestrian mall downtown is always brimming with life: buskers, musicians, tarot card readers, a guy who can curl his lanky body into a 20-inch Plexiglas box, and ZIP Code Man, who can pinpoint exactly where you live when you holler out your zip code. The mall is also full of cheerful people strolling or reading books or talking at the outdoor cafes and restaurants. Everyone is beaming with health and everyone is crazily attractive, sometimes so much so that you crave to see just one ugly person walking down the street. I once met an Ontario couple who told me they moved to Boulder but had to leave because everyone was too happy. It was too much for them. I thought about this the other day when I arrived in Boulder and saw those same vibrantly happy people all over town. I wondered if this kind of happiness is sustainable. Are people here really happier than people who live in say, Buffalo or Regina? I suspect they are. Most of the people who live in Boulder come from someplace else, have had the gumption to get up and look for a better place, have left the french fries and Tim Hortons, and crappy weather behind, making it one of those cream of the crop places you come across almost always in scenically gorgeous settings. On a hike the other day in the Boulder foothills, my friend Aliah—who has spent years searching for the perfect place to live (no wonder we’re friends)—told me Boulder is the place she has settled on. “It’s just always so consistently positive and alive here. There’s always something creatively wacky and fun going on.”
She’s right. It was like that when I was 17 and it’s still like that now. I wonder why I didn’t stay for good. It must have had something to do with those good-looking people all over town—they are a little much. (But to get an idea of all the wacky stuff that makes Boulder, Colorado so great, see: Keep Boulder Weird.)
Meanwhile, I’m staying at my sister’s place for a few days just north of Boulder, in Fort Collins, another college town also full of cool stuff.
CLICK TO ENLARGE PHOTOS:
 Plexiglass Man, Pearl St. Mall, Boulder |  Naked Pumpkin Run, Boulder, Co |
 Friends Don't Let Friends Drink Corporate Coffee  Boulder, Colorado |  Laurie Gough on public piano, Ft. Collins, Co.  Fish bike anyone? Fort Collins, Co. |
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