Boulder — It’s a little odd.

Carmina Miranda leads the Conga
at the Creek Festival dance stage.

Boulder, Colorado‘s slogan is “Between the mountains and reality.” Young women with fairy wings often roam the pedestrian mall (Is it still pedestrian, then?), and one of our more colorful street characters wears a pirate hat and has a Jolly Roger flying from the back of his Rascal scooter. The fact that I can’t remember if he has an eye patch tells you how many odd things clamor for my attention. No art-gallery opening is complete without the man with the tattooed bald spot and satin lounge suit, and you can buy a bonsai tree off a cart in front of our Art Deco courthouse.

So when I put elves in my book about Boulder, it felt almost like cheating. Ask a random sampling of Boulderites if they believe in garden devas, magic charms and the calming powers of amethyst, and one of them is likely to hand you a business card for past-life regression.

The New Age is old hat in Boulder, but every year a fresh crop of college students discovers the thrill of buying goddess toe rings and hanging dream catchers in their dorm-room windows. Some of them originally came for the skiing or the rock climbing or the off-road unicycling, but if they stay, well…
It’s because they’re a little odd, and Boulder feels like home.

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Click for Boulder Weekly‘s very funny “Boulder Lexicon — Your guide to Boulder-speak.”

Click for 2004 travel article, Boulder, CO — Weirdness on the Hoof, written by me as Kiki Clark.