Boulder, CO – Festival and Biking

This was a big weekend in Boulder.  The Bolder Boulder 10k running race was going on on Memorial Day (this race is the second largest race, attracting 53,000 runners this year!).  We had wanted to race in it this year, but we’ll just have to wait til next year.

I hadn’t mentioned this on the blog yet, but we just found out earlier this month that I’m pregnant.  This was just a ‘little’ surprising to us, and so the last several weeks have been filled with lots of life-altering decisions.  For me, that includes changing my exercise routines and eliminating running during the pregnancy.

The Boulder Festival was an all-weekend long event, too.  So we decided to head up there on Saturday to check out the festival.  We took our mountain bikes to help us get around town, since we were expecting some crowds.

Rock climbing and Kayak-pools for the kids, to just mention two of the kid-oriented things to do – fun stuff!

After fighting the crowds for a little, we decided to grab a bite to eat and then hop on our bikes and head west along Boulder Creek path.

I thought these cairns in the middle of the creek were really awesome.  There were lots of them.  Andy wanted to see if there was epoxy holding them in place, but he didn’t want to get wet to find out.

We ended up riding into Boulder Creek Canyon.  This canyon path follows along Hwy 119 into another beautiful canyon.  The path became a soft-surface trail, but was wide enough and smooth enough to be a great casual ride. Of course, uphill on the way in and downhill on the way back out.

On the way back we detoured into Settler’s Park.  We didn’t know anything about it and just wanted to check it out.  Our timing was perfect – there was music in the air!  A group of about 6 guys were just hanging out in the picnic area in a drumming circle playing some great percussion music.  And then higher up on the trail was a flutist perched up on the red rock hogback playing American Indian style music.

A grouping of bright orange poppies at the trailhead.

Hiking up Red Rocks Loop trail

Andy scrambled to the top of the pinnacles

On the way back down the trail, we knew we were not going to be able to outrun the rain.  But when I saw a little white ball roll past me, I thought how odd to see a piece of crystal here on the sandstone…but nope, it was a small pea-sized hail that rolled past.  The hailstorms out here can be vicious.  Last week a storm hit one area of Denver causing massive damage to trees, cars, and houses. 

We were fortunate to only battle some rain on our bikes til we made it back to Pearl Street.  We decided to stop for a drink and an appetizer to wait out the rain.  We ate, we drank, we hit a bike store, we drank some coffee and tea, and we waited some more.  A rare rainstorm for Colorado.  The temperature dropped about 20 degrees and Andy decided it would be too cold (& wet) for me to make it back to the car on my bike.  It was a rare day for me to choose NOT to bring a backup long sleeve shirt.  So, being my knight-in-biking-clothes he eventually took off solo to get the car and bring it back to me.

On the drive home, we saw a beautiful rainbow.  A second rainbow shadowed this one, but was too faint for the camera.

We started to see some evidence that the storm was worse south of town…branches, leaves, etc strewn about.  Then we started to see some white stuff on the sides of the roads and on the roofs of houses.  My first thought was snow, but then we realized it was hail.  We were very lucky after all – the hail did come, but it bypassed us and hit south of town…and all the way into Arvada.

Andy decided to test his driving skills, driving on the piles of hail we encountered.  I don’t advise it!  It’s not like driving on snow!  Imagine driving on a pile of marbles several inches thick…that’s what it was like.