So, come next week I’ll be headed to Boulder for several days. Half a day Tuesday, and every evening, I’ll have for personal time during the little business trip. So, for any of you dopers out in that area, what are the highlights of where I should go? I’ve been told vaguely that I’ll “enjoy it” out there… but for all I know, that’s a euphemism for being sacrificed to dark gods 
Any suggestions?
These are the things I recommend doing/seeing in Boulder:
Walk on the Pearl Street Mall (pedestrian mall). Window shop, people watch. There are buskers and people of all types around. There are several good, if pricey, restaurants on the Mall and tons of interesting stores. I highly recommend Art Mart and Peppercorn, and I think there is a map/globe store and some good bookstores.
Have tea/lunch at the Dushanbe Tea House . The entire building was built in Tajikstan and imported piece by piece and reassembled in Boulder. It’s only a couple of blocks from the Pearl Street mall, so easy to walk there.
During the day on a weekday (though weekends are cool too, but the factory isn’t in production), tour the Celestial Seasonings Tea Factory . The tour is free and you can buy the tea and tea products at a discounted rate in their gift shop. My favorite part of the tour is going in the mint room - ten seconds and your sinuses are completely clear! You may need a car to drive there, though there’s probably a way to get there by bus.
Of course, you could always walk around on the University of Colorado-Boulder campus, hike trails near the National Center for Atmospheric Research , or any number of other things. There’s tons of stuff to do in Boulder itself, or you could go to nearby Nederland (where they have Unfrozen Dead Guy Days, a long story), Niwot, Louisville, Broomfield, or heck, even all the way down to Denver! If you have questions for what to do in Denver, let me know, because I can recommend all kinds of stuff to do here, too.
There’s a little bit of something for everyone here in Boulder. Here are links to two local newspapers: Colorado Daily is a daily freebie aimed mostly at the university crowd. The conventional daily paper is the Daily Camera which has a nightlife page.
Have fun.
Where are you staying?
Stroll Pearl Street Mall.
Hike beneath the Flatirons in Chautauqua Park.
Eat breakfast at Lucile’s.
Have a margarita or three (three’s the limit) at the Rio.
Stop at Whole Foods Market and watch the trustafarians and white Buddhist Monks eating lunch.
Jax for seafood
Zolo for southwest
Frasca for Italian. I haven’t been there, but the Denver Post’s notoriously cranky restaurant critic waxed orgasmically about it today.
Page Fault , looks like you’ve gotten some pretty good advice already.
About those margs at The Rio…three’s the limit for a reason. When I first moved here I thought I was “cool” enough to handle 4. Big mistake. Found out there’s three shots of tequila in EACH drink. :eek: That’s a killer…especially if you aren’t used to drinking/living at altitude (In fact, drink LOTS of water while you are here…even if you aren’t thirsty. You’ll feel better in general).
If you’re into the shopping scene and have a way to get there, the Flat Irons Crossing Mall in Broomfield is really nice, and very pretty design-wise. Waterfalls, ponds, etc.
/me lives in [deleted] and has been too busy with school to do any of these things =)
I’ve been there. Frasca is excellent. One of the guys who own it used to be a master sommalier at the French Laundry. Definitely worth a trip.
You’ve gotten good suggestions so far. Also, you might catch a concert up on the Hill at the Fox Theater if anyone you like is playing there. In general, the Hill is good for people-watching, if you want to see why people say the things they do about Boulder.
What are the rockies like this time of year? Too snowy to do much in?
I was in Denver for a week and a half on business last September, and I spent a spare saturday hiking up mount Audubon. It was a very, very cool hike. (Even though I was completely unprepared for it–I was wearing cotton shorts, a polo shirt, and tennis shoes and carried a bottle of arrowhead with me. What can I say? I just drove towards the mountains, stopped at a ranger station, and asked for a good day hike…)
Well, there’s skiing. And I get a kick out of hiking in the winter, in the Front Range, at least (I don’t have snowshoes). But yeah, there’s a lot of snow up there, and will be until about June. The 14ers don’t really thaw until about August.
Only in snowshoes. Lots of snow up there this year.
Generally the sacrifices are held just east of town on Thursday and Friday nights, starting at midnight. The two exceptions to the rule are Cthulu (Sundays at noon at the mall on 28th street), and the 7th Day Adventists (after dinner on the first Wednesday of each month up by NCAR).
When in Rome…or Boulder as the case may be…
…sip lattes and discuss the size of your trust fund
…smoke pot and ask for spare change then ride your $500 bike home to mom and dad
…eat homemade organic granola then drive your gas-guzzler up to the flatirons for a hike in your $100 organic hemp shorts
Ah, Boulder.
Try to make friends with the members of the ruling committee. They’re good folk. But don’t let ego go to Mother Abigail’s head.
When I used to visit the Western Electric factory on 120th street I went to Boulder all the time, starting before the Banana Repubics and other chain stores moved into the Pearl Street Mall. Our favorite place to eat was Broker Inn, on 36 an exit or so before Boulder proper. The attraction of that place was a very large bowl of shrimp served as a standard appetizer before dinner - and very good shrimp also. Is it still around?
Yup.
1.) Count all the Buddhist establishments
2.) Visit the big bookstore on Pearl Street (forget the name). Spend three hours. Attend a reading, if you’re lucky
3.) Go to NIST and visit their mini-museum
Well, if you’re any kind of hardware-store geek like me you’ll love McGuckins. It’s not just a hardware store as it has assminated most of the block most of the block, and has sporting goods, gardening and lots of shelves of other random odds-and-ends. But it’s a pretty cool place to wander around with lots of “Damn! I’ve been looking for another one of those for 15 years” moments. Just make sure you have correctly estimated your available space and money before you go, because you’ll want a lot of shit there.
It’s the only reason I ever go to boulder anymore.
Heh. You know you’re a geek when the first thing you thought of when you saw this thread title was “Go see the atomic clock!” 
Is there a way to see that, BTW? I’ve been listening to their shortwave broadcast for years now and I’d love to see the real thing.
Carpe Cs! (Sieze the Cesium!)
Don’t know about the current clock, but you can see one output in the lobby of NIST, and the mini-museum I noted shows you pieces of earlier clocks.
Heh… thanks everyone, for all the advice so far. As it turns out, sounds like most of the company is already going to Broker Inn for one of the nights! So we’ve already gotten one of them planned out.
Someone asked where we were staying… actually, we’re staying at the Broker Inn itself. Convenient, eh?
hurriedly scribbles down advice so far
Atomic clock? We’re all geeks here, that’s one that would probably be interesting.
McGuckins… sounds interesting, I’ll mention it.
The restaurant advice is appreciated. I’m especially interested in checking out that tea house… I’ll try to drag some coworkers there.
Again, thanks!