Boulder

The Charity: Envision Charter School
The Girl: Naomi Jozovich
Naomi, my former boss and life long friend, works at a charter school in Denver. Her school “gets it”. I met the Principal and the Chief Organization Officer, and they are doing the things other schools need to be: project based learning, emphasis on technology, and addressing the needs of students instead of the needs of states. You should help them.

Top Five things to do in Boulder:

Five: Check out Pearl Street mall.
Four: Check out any of Naropa’s campuses, (or if hippies scare you, go to CU at Boulder)
Three: Go shooting

Two: Go to one of the many parks.
One: Enjoy and appreciate the Mountains. (Go on a hike)

Things I passed on: Hippies at Naropa (I had my own as a tour guide), walking around the parks in Boulder (I did this in Denver, and I had the mountains to entertain me), rock climbing, biking, and many other things.
Good places to stay: With John and Naomi.

Boulder’s Ratings. On a scale from 1 to Boston: 8
Denver has gorgeous views, mountains galore, parks, outdoorsiness (okay, it’s not a word, but it should be), hippies, and a good vibe.
Denver doesn’t have a ocean, or history.

The story: Boulder is great. First things first we awoke and took to a drive in the mountains. This alone is worth it, because the views are breath taking. As you wind in and out around mountains, often along a river, you get to appreciate the changing of color in the leaves of the Aspen trees set with the backdrop of mountains. Now, I can’t claim to be an art Guru, but if I were, this is where I would come for inspiration and beauty. Then we arrived at our destination, which was really just some open space in the woods where we could fire some guns. This was a blast, no pun intended. I got to fire a .357, a shotgun, and a rifle.

They are all fun to fire in different ways. But after we’d had our fun, it was time to get going and check out more downtown Boulder area. I ate a delicious crepe at pearl street mall, and told the girl at ice cream stand who gave me a free sample of coffee chocolate chip ice cream that I would be blogging about how good it was. And good it was. I wish I remembered her name. Then we realized we were a bit short on time, and that we had to get back, so we headed back into town. A good day in Boulder was had by all.

PS HELP THE EDUCATION SYSTEM THRIVE!