CONTINENTAL DIVIDE

Photo taken on I-70 early near the Continental Divide early one morning.

I drove to Boulder Colorado for a meeting this week. I had envisioned a short trip -- after all I'm in the Rockies, but I logged 730 miles and one day each way. It was all worth it, though -- my meeting, Boulder itself, and the scenery between here and there.

My parents went to college at CU Boulder in the late 30s, so I had a special interest in the city. I tried to envision it as it must have been before World War II, but I couldn't. Boulder doubled (?) in size, gentrified, and made a name for itself as a city on the vanguard. Naropa Insitute, Celestial Seasonings, Shambala and the Nature Conservancy, after all, make their home here.

I visited the public library's branch for local history, in a restored Carnegie Library building. The library holds a genealogy collection, hundreds of thousands of photographs and more than 1000 oral histories. Manged by a few dedicated staff and many dedicated volunteers, it brings alive the entire history of Boulder, not just the recent. The work of this library is a reminder that Boulders history goes way back into the 19th century when Colorado was being settled -- it doesn't begin in the 70s when it became a New Age haven.