9/23 - Boulder, Colorado

Having not made any plans for today, I came up with the bright idea of taking a scenic drive down to Boulder to see the Flatiron Mountains, visit NCAR and have lunch.  Wrong. The 40-mile drive (one-way) consisted of heavy traffic and constant road construction. The place we'd chosen for lunch turned out to be in the middle of the busy University of Colorado district as well as being in yet another construction area which complicated getting to the restaurant. 

In addition, the drive was anything but scenic. The Boulder area has severe air pollution problems, even worse than Asheville's were before NC forced the TVA to clean up its act. We haven't noticed much air pollution in the Loveland/Fort Collins area but it's a bit further from the mountains which makes pollution less noticeable. The Boulder area is probably very beautiful when there's no smog.

Boulder's mountains were almost completely obscured by air pollution.

After lunch we headed up into the hills above Boulder to the National Center for Atmospheric Research which has very interesting displays of everything to do with weather, especially weather in the Boulder area.  We watched a video on the September 2013 flash floods (which involved a lot more than Big Thompson Canyon) and saw some of what's been done to mitigate flood damage in Boulder in the future.

NCAR  - designed by world-renowned architect I.M. Pei

Very hazy view of Boulder from NCAR's uphill site

Finally got a good view of the Flatirons on the road up to NCAR

Another hazy view of the mountains from the hills above Boulder

The air pollution lay like a very thick and dirty blanket across the whole area.  It reminded us of a similar dirty blanket covering everything within sight from Mount Mitchell when we were up there nearly 20 years ago.

A cold front is coming through here right now with the wind whipping up sheets of dust (this is a very dusty campground).  The views tomorrow may be clearer which will be appreciated on our drive 170 miles north to Scottsbluff, Nebraska. We went to Omaha and up the eastern border of Nebraska last year but have never been to the western side.