Standing on the corner adjacent to the circle, the line of cars went on and on, disappearing around the curve in the road. There had to be at least forty cars lined up, patiently waiting to enter the circle. And it wasn’t just on Highway 72, the scenic byway from Estes Park to Nederland.
A line of cars, not quite as long, were stacked up on Highway 119 Boulder Canyon as well. And again, on the road from Black Hawk going through the heart of town, cars stopped, waiting, waiting. At one point, the traffic was stopped inside the circle — gridlock, mountain town style.
One of the reasons I appreciate living and working in Nederland, Colorado is avoiding traffic. My east coast friends from Washington, DC assure met that neither Denver nor Boulder have traffic anywhere close to the type of gridlock that bottlenecks the beltway back there.
Nevertheless, living and working in a small town of 1300 has spoiled me to an extent. Even driving down to Boulder feels crowded and congested with way too many cars, and way too many people. Nederland feels low key, without even a traffic light to bring me to a grinding halt. Instead, we have the ever popular rotary or circle, which on a typical day works quite well to keep traffic moving where three scenic byways come together.
But not this weekend. With the Aspen color change reaching its peak this weekend, it felt like all of the Front Range had made the 18 mile, 3000-foot climb up to Nederland to view its spectacular fall foliage and partake of its restaurants, coffee houses, and shops.
And the crush of people didn’t stop upon leaving Nederland. A drive up to the two local county parks of Mud Lake and Caribou Ranch resulted in no parking spaces anywhere, and cars lined up along the roads. The only thing that could have made it worse would have been a moose showing up.
On the one hand, it’s great for my home town and for its economy to have visitors from all over spending money in our tiny town, lining its coffers with badly needed money ahead of the much slower winter season.
On the other hand, I’m kind of proprietary over my home town. I love living here because it is quiet and small and down to earth. I love that people help each other out through community events, and I like going into my favorite coffee house and getting my coffee in two minutes, rather than waiting in a long line of Boulderites, Denverites or others from the plains.
Looking at the long line of cars, a part of me just wished they would all go away and give me my sleepy, quiet town back. Oh well, give it another month — the snow will fly, the winds will blow, and all those people from the plains will be long gone.
