Exploring Life in Boulder, Colorado: A Scientist's Perspective

[Surrealist]

Anybody live in Colorado? Boulder? How do you like it?

 

[Astronuc]

I used to work for a company based in Boulder.

Certainly a nice area - but now it is very crowded. So it's OK if you like crowds.

I remember it back in the early 1970's. It was a really nice place then.

 

[BobG]

I live in Colorado Springs. If you like outdoor activities, it's great.

The weather's mild. Enough variation that you actually do have four seasons, but you'll get a couple weeks at most of really low temperatures (less than 10 degrees) and a couple weeks at most of really hot temperatures (greater than 90). I'm not sure of Boulder's elevation, so they might get a little more hot weather. Denver's at 5,200 ft and they get more hot weather than the Springs does, which is at 6,200 ft. The winters are usually broken up with a few stretches of temperatures in the 50's.

It's usually very dry (although not last year or this year). Most of the snow is either in the Fall or the Spring. We still have snow on Pikes Peak, which is a little unusual for June, although I've hiked up it in mid-June before with snow.

You go West 15 minutes to an hour and there's lots of hiking, camping, four-wheel drive trails, rafting, and kayaking. In the Winter, there's lots of skiing close to the Denver area.

Boulder has a reputation for high housing costs. They've put some restrictions on new housing developments to prevent a lot of the urban sprawl that's affected Denver and the Springs. You wind up with most of the low wage workers unable to afford to live in the town, so they have to commute from somewhere else. In fact, Boulder has a reputation for being kind of strange, but that's the viewpoint of people from Colorado Springs which is one of the most conservative cities in America (it's home to James Dobson's Focus on the Family, Ted Haggard, and all of those guys).

Colorado is kind of a strange place. It's one of the top states for percentage of college graduates, but near the bottom when it comes to students graduating from high school. In other words, a lot folks from out of state move here for high pay and low taxes. Aside from Denver and Boulder, it's an extremely conservative state - I always thought I was a conservative until I moved here and discovered I'd actually always been a liberal.

 

[neutrino]

Phil Plait just moved there.
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/05/28/and-hello-boulder/

 

[hypatia]

I went to school in Denver/Boulder, of course that was many years ago, but I loved it. I've went back for vacations many times sense.
The population has exploaded, and driveing was crazy on my last visit{2 yrs ago}. I wouldn't want to live anywhere near thoses 2 cities today. But a young person, I'm sure would still enjoy it.

 

[BobG]

I should probably add in the down side to Colorado.

Invest in sunscreen and a good hat. Colorado is the skin cancer capitol of the US. Thin atmosphere doesn't block UV rays very well.

Drink lots of water. People dehydrate easily in thin atmosphere. Even the residents get headaches at the top of Pikes Peak (over 14,000 ft) if they haven't drunk enough water on the hike up.

And have several pairs of jeans. At the fancier restaraunts, you'll want to make sure you wear a clean pair of jeans.

The big youth soccer tournaments are also fun. You have teams from all over the midwest come to play. It's always funny to watch the puzzled expressions on the players faces when they're warming up with the soccer balls their coach diligently made sure were properly inflated before the trip. In the thin atmosphere, the size 4 balls stretch out to size 5 balls and the size 5 balls into size 6 balls (if there were a size 6 ball). They know something is wrong here, but can't quite figure out what's wrong with their balls.

 

[Surrealist]

Thanks for the comments... although, I'm not so sure you guys depicted CO in such a flattering light... but at least you were honest.