My Boulder Welcoming...

Hiro Watanabe on the tyrolean to Cob Rock, Boulder Canyon ©Bennett Barthelemy

Relocation is a challenging thing... What is home? Where is home? Strange to touch down in a new place with the expressed motive of nailing ones feet to the ground. Even if its not forever it has to be approached that way from a survival standpoint. Going in on wing and a prayer, last minute has kind of become my modus operandi... Everything in my car, loaded to the gills and not psyched to drive past Nederland to camp, or worse stay in hotels till a room is found. Day one and I got my first call back from a potential sublet...

I stood on the doorstep, admiring the xeriscaping in the front yard. Looked natural, wild. The door opened and the young woman answered who had put the notice on Craigslist. She was vacating her room and was anxious for the right tenant. Short hair, tiny glasses. She seemed like she had embraced an alternative lifestyle. A housemate was there but the third was out. The two men were a couple living downstairs and running a massage business from the basement as well. I toured the music room with guitars, drums, piano... Cats wandered the halls.

Finally I got the tour of the room I was to be renting. "My cat lives here too, this is her room and she is staying, she comes with the room. There are two other cats here too." There was one other contender for the room. She suggested we all meet the next day along with the errant roommate to see who would be the best fit. My humor got the better of me and I said the other contender and I could arm wrestle for it. She was taken aback slightly but recovered and said, "Well, yes I suppose you could do that."

Tomorrow never came for me at the North Boulder house. That same evening I called Hiro and within minutes of his posting on Craigslist he had me filling the spare room with my car's worth of stuff... A whirlwind of interviews, finding new coffee shops to haunt, burrito joints, checking out the local routes in Boulder Canyon with Hiro who is also a climber, making forays to the Goodwill, finding the best bike routes and best ways to avoid traffic - has kept me busy.

Moments on several days already spent enthralled with the intensity of thunderstorms - with hail whitening the streets and the widest bolts of lightning I have ever seen. Dynamic weather for sure. I made the mistake of reading Weather Undergrounds highlight in weather history from the last two days and honestly it has left me slightly gun-shy. I got to teach Hiro my new roommate, A V10+ boulderer that somehow has never climbed trad (poor soul), how to bail effectively. At Cob Rock clouds built, virga swirled and thunder grumbled today. There is a sling and three biners on two museum quality pins up there for the taking...

Watching the the dusky light fall on the Flatirons from the Brewing Market in South Boulder from my cafe perch... so far so good...

From Weather Underground, June 21 ... Today in Metro Denver weather history... 

19-21 in 1875... smoke from several large Forest fires in the mountains was visible from the city on each of these days. 20-21 in 1897... high winds raked the city overnight. Southeast winds were sustained to 60 mph with gusts as high as 72 mph on the 20th. Southeast winds were sustained to 57 mph with gusts to 60 mph on the 21st. In 2007... a brief hot spell produced two temperature records. The high temperature of 97 degrees was tied on the 20th. A new record high temperature of 99 degrees was established on the 21st. 21 in 1927... north winds were sustained to 40 mph with gusts to 44 mph. In 1984... lightning struck and killed two children standing near a tree in a backyard in Lakewood. Strong thunderstorm downbursts caused a wind gust to 58 mph in Northglenn and knocked down two power poles near Brighton. In 1988... lightning struck a home in Denver... causing about ten thousand dollars damage. Lightning damaged 3 homes in Littleton... and also hit a house in Greenwood Village that had been struck by lightning 7 years previously. In 1991... thunderstorms produced widespread hail across Metro Denver. Hail as large as 2 1/2 inches fell at several locations across southwest Metro Denver. One storm spotter reported hail 8 inches deep near the intersection of I-25 and c-470. Heavy rain with the storms caused some street flooding. In Commerce City... several cars were under water... and in Westminster a police officer reported water up to the doors of his car. Damage to homes and automobiles totaled 55 million dollars. In 1992... a tornado touched down briefly near Bennett. Another tornado was briefly on the ground near Strasburg. In 1994... heavy thunderstorm rains caused flooding in Metro Denver. Several vehicles were stalled in the high water on I-25. Lightning struck an underground natural gas line in Aurora... causing a fire. Widespread power outages were also observed. In 1996... three homes were struck by lightning in Parker. The lightning struck the garage of the first home... which started a small fire that burned some siding and spread into the attic. A second home sustained damage to the attic when a small fire was started. The third home received only minor damage. Lightning also sparked two small grass fires in the area. A man in Lakewood received minor injuries when he was struck by lightning while working on a ladder. A funnel cloud was sighted in Castle Rock. Strong thunderstorm winds downed a large tree near Crossroads mall in Boulder. A small tornado (f0) briefly touched down near Lafayette. No damage was reported. In 1997... one inch diameter hail was measured in Boulder. In 2002... a thunderstorm wind gust to 62 mph was recorded at Denver International Airport. In 2005... severe thunderstorms produced hail to 1 inch in diameter in Broomfield along with 3/4 inch hail near Arvada. In 2006... a man riding a motorcycle was struck and killed by lightning on U.S. Highway 36 between church ranch Blvd. And Sheridan Blvd. In Westminster. After the biker was struck... he and his motorcycle crashed into the center Concrete median of the Highway. The lightning Bolt left a crater in the Highway asphalt that measured 18 inches long... 8 inches wide and 4 inches deep. In 2010... a severe thunderstorm produced hail up to 1 1/2 inches in diameter near Morrison. In Lafayette and Louisville... hail up to one inch in diameter was observed. 21-22 in 1941... strong thunderstorms produced cloudbursts of rain in Boulder County... starting during the late evening of the 21st and continuing overnight. The heavy rains over the Boulder Creek... Left Hand creek... and south St vrain river basins produced flooding in already swollen streams and turned dry gulches into raging torrents. The force of the floodwaters swept a man from the arms of his wife to his death... severely damaged canyon homes and swept others away... and hurtled a car down a steep embankment after the driver narrowly escaped. West of Boulder... the Boulder Canyon Highway was littered with rocks and debris and collapsed when two culverts were washed away. The flood waters washed much debris down Four Mile Canyon... damaging the Road near the creek bed. A bridge over Dry Creek just south of Niwot was completely washed away. In 1964... scattered hail and rain caused property damage and local flooding in Boulder. In 1989... an unseasonably cold weather system produced strong winds over much of Metro Denver and snowfall in the foothills as low as 7500 feet elevation. One to 6 inches of snow fell in the foothills west of Denver with 15 inches reported on The Summit of Mount Evans. Six inches of snow were measured at Conifer. Rainfall totaled only 0.09 inch at Stapleton International Airport where northwest winds gusted to 29 mph on the 21st.