Walkin' Boulder
By Sue Deans
The former editor of the Camera blogs about exploring Boulder on foot.

September 19, 2011

I started out today doing my habitual North Boulder circle route, north on Broadway to Lee Hill Road, back to Yarmouth and south on 19th Street. I changed direction this time and from Broadway I turned east on Iris and then headed north on Folsom to see where it went.

It goes through a beautiful shady neighborhood of large lots and large houses. I followed Folsom until it split off and became 26th Street, and there I turned left on Norwood toward Centennial Middle School, where there was some construction noise that piqued my curiosity. If I’d turned right, which I’ll do on a future walk, I would have been on the Wonderland Creek Greenway Trail, which hooks up with Four Mile Creek Trail and goes past the Pleasantview soccer fields near 47th Street where my granddaughter sometimes plays.

And a little further up the road is Wonderland Creek.

So there is a major construction project going on at Centennial, which must be one of the last ones from the 2006 bond issue, passed by voters to upgrade schools in the Boulder Valley School district. The school district has an extensive website on the three-phase, $296.8 million bond program, which planned improvements to every school in the district. www.bvsd.org/bondproject/Pages/default.aspx

At Centennial, the first phase includes renovating the front entry, main office, science rooms and upper corridors, along with new boilers and unit ventilators. The second phase, shown here, is a new gym, locker rooms and art room, scheduled to be finished by the middle of the school year. The project is costing about $7.3 million.

Across from the school there appears to have once been an apple orchard and some beautiful old apple trees remain, now laden with fruit. Another tree nearby was showing some very preliminary signs of fall color.

I love some of the little touches on people’s homes. This wooden gate and fence have a rustic look that echoes the house they surround.

This gorgeous new home is under construction nearby on Norwood. These homes have a fabulous view behind them as they sit on a ridge overlooking Boulder and the Flatirons. This picture of the Flatirons was shot a block or two away, from the top of the hill at 19th and
Norwood.

A friend I talked to the other night lives on Neher Lane, down the hill from Norwood, an unpaved road that heads eastward from 19th Street. He called the street “Fred’s driveway.” Boulder newcomers may not know that famed syndicated cartoonist Fred Neher once lived there. Neher drew a cartoon called “Life’s Like That,” which appeared in newspapers for 43 years. Camera history columnist Carol Taylor wrote about him recently: www.dailycamera.com/features/ci_18271504. Neher donated his archives to the University of Colorado before he died in 2001 at 97.

From there I took 19th Street nearly all the way home. Today’s walk totaled 5.2 miles.