#35: Boulder, USA
Evening Social event
Boulder is famous for its beer culture; according to a 2017 Datafiniti report on craft beer in the United States, Boulder has the most breweries per capita of any city in the US. We will visit a few of those breweries on a "Boulder Pub Crawl".
We will first visit our host company, Ricoh, to see some of the printers being sold by this major digital printer manufacturer. Then we will be transported back to the Pearl Street Mall area of Boulder to go on a walking tour of a number of breweries, including of course much beer tasting. There will also be food at every stop.
Extracurricular Activities
If any attendees are interested, I will organize the following activities on the Saturday and Sunday before the meeting:
Saturday, September 15: There is a college football game at 3:00PM between the University of Colorado and the University of New Hampshire, in Boulder. The cheapest tickets are $44. This will be a true US college football experience, but I will caution that the game is not guaranteed to be a closely fought contest, since Colorado could win easily (but you never know!). Anyone who is interested should contact Dennis Carney (dennis.carney@ricoh-usa.com) as soon as possible and definitely before September 1. If there are interested parties, I will buy tickets around September 1. NOTE: No one showed interest in this offer, and so I have now been booked for another activity on this day.
Sunday, September 16: I will organize a hike in Boulder, starting at 2:00PM (NOTE later start time than originally announced). We will be hiking to the Flatirons, the classic icons of Boulder (those big tilted rocks in the picture at the top of this page). It will be a 2 - 3 hour hike that is about 4 - 5 km long, moderate to hard difficulty. We will take our time and take breaks to catch your breath. The trail is rocky and there is one small spot where you have to scramble up some rocks with hand and foot holds carved into them. Wear good walking shoes, and bring water. Unless we get an unexpected large rain storm soon before the hike, the trails should be dry. Anyone who is interested should contact Dennis Carney (dennis.carney@ricoh-usa.com) so I know to look for you.
For the hike, we will meet at 2:00PM, just outside the Ranger Cottage at Chatauqua Park in Boulder. Here is a map of the starting location. Looking at that map, there is parking just north of the building and also on the loop to the east of the building (Clematis Drive and Sumac Drive). However, those spots fill up fast so it is more likely you will end up on Baseline Road just north of the park, or on the roads going north off Baseline. (Fun fact: Baseline Road is so named because it is right on the 40th parallel; that is, the 40 degrees north latitude line.) On the day of the hike, you can call me on my cell phone, +1 (720)771-8374.
NOTE: The hotel room block does not include the night of September 15, because of the football game and because the hotel is quite close to the stadium. You could stay elsewhere on that night, or pay a significantly higher price at the Millennium Harvest House.