Tracey:
Finally, the mountains we’ve been driving all this way for! First stop was our hotel, the very cool Boulder Mountain Lodge - one of the most affordable places we could find, so we were very psyched to discover that it’s a gorgeous two mile drive outside of Boulder - cutting through a canyon and following the tumbling Boulder Creek - and tucked right up against a very steep hillside, peaceful and lovely. The room has skylights and a small kitchen and is perfect as home-base for a couple of days.
We had only enough time after driving 8 hours to grab dinner and stroll around town. We had dinner at the Boulder Dushanbe Tea House, a present from Tajikistan to Boulder that is representative of tea houses there, complete with carved cedar posts and elaborately painted ceilings and walls. The building was so unique that it was worth a meal there (though the food was fine it wasn’t all that exciting). We walked off dinner by strolling through Boulder’s version of Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall. Between that and the college town vibe, this is feeling a lot like home.
