Tag Archives: B and F Market

April Fools or April Nightmare?

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“In a shocking move, Thursday, Nederland Town Hall announced plans to incorporate into the City of Boulder.”

So led the front page article of Nederland’s local weekly newspaper, the Mountain-Ear .  Just the thought of such a preposterous idea led me to shudder.  What???

For some local residents who didn’t take care to read the disclaimer at the bottom, this story probably gave them heart failure.  The story went on to say the town will be renamed West Boulder, with quotes from town officials saying how “ecstatic” they were with the decision.

I knew in a moment that the story was pure fiction, as it represented the humor of the Mountain-Ear’s annual April Fool’s Day issue.  Thank God.  In the eight years we’ve made our home in Nederland, one thing has become quite clear — Nederland marches to its own drummer.  And most Nederlanders want nothing to do with nearby Boulder.  In fact, most of us go out of our way to spend as little time in Boulder as possible, making trips for either work or errands.  I’ve been known to even make fun of Boulder’s eco-elitist tendencies, all the while engaging in massive consumption and materialism.

I love that our town is quirky and weird.  I love that while we have a plethora of coffee shops, there is nary a Starbucks in sight.  And that we go to the local Ace hardware to buy our paint, instead of Home Depot.  And that if we want a good burger, we head to the Pioneer Inn instead of McDonalds.  One of the silliest part of this farce was claiming our local B and F Market would be turned into a Whole Foods.  Let the howling begin!

I can’t imagine building condo developments on the hills bordering Barker Reservoir, calling it The Residences of Barker.  I know for a fact, that if even an inkling of something like this was proposed, I would personally picket Town Hall and write an op-ed to both the Mountain-Ear, and the Daily Camera (Boulder’s newspaper), and I’m sure I’d have plenty of company.

People move to Nederland to escape the yuppiness and high prices of Boulder.  We drive dirty, dusty Subarus, chop our wood for our stoves, and walk our dogs unleashed in the middle of a dirt road.  And we like it that way.

If we wanted to live in a condo and take our dogs to a dog park, and we had a million dollars to pay for a modest home, then I guess we would live in Boulder.  I live here to be among my people, the people who value the silence of living among the trees and the mountains, the people who are captivated when they find a moose standing in their driveway in the morning.  I live in Nederland to live among a diverse group of people who yearn for less materialism, and a simpler way of life.  The kind of people who appreciate the serenity of alpenglow turning the Indian Peaks a perfect rosy hue.

And if Nederland ever became an extension of Boulder, that would be the day I’d leave this fair town for somewhere else.

 

 

 

Pop, Pop, Pop

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POP! At first, I wasn’t sure what happened.  Was the car backfiring?  Did a tire blow out?

No, the car seemed to functioning just the same as always.  Still, I’d definitely heard a loud pop and it seemed to be coming from the rear of the car.

Only upon arriving home and unloading the groceries did I finally realize what had happened.  My bag of tortilla chips was spilling all over, having popped from the 3000-foot climb up Boulder Canyon.  Just one of the perils of living at higher altitudes.

It’s not just the chips though.  Everything fills with air until it’s close to bursting including the ice cream. Yesterday, I bought a gallon of ice cream, only to have chocolate ice cream oozing all over the inside of my Trader Joe’s canvas shopping bag by the time I got home.

Last year, I got stopped in the local B and F Market here in Nederland by a lady from out of town who hadn’t quite got a handle on this phenomenon.

“Do you live here?” she queried.

I assured her that I did live in Nederland.

“Can I ask you a question?  Why are all the chip bags puffed out like they are going to explode?”

I went on to explain that items like chip bags inflate with air as you go higher in altitude.  With a smile, I cautioned her to be careful opening her toothpaste or lotions that night, as they might explode with a spurt of paste or liquid.

Living in small mountain towns or rural areas carries it’s own shopping perils or perhaps I should say it’s own type of special planning.  While it’s true we do have our a local market, selection is limited, and prices are much higher on basic items than what you would find in a supermarket down in Boulder.

Since most residents at some point find themselves in Boulder for work or for other errands, the bulk of my grocery shopping is done down there.  But depending on the season, I have to be careful about when I shop and what I purchase.

In winter, it’s easier, because temperatures are cooler and I can get away with buying refrigerated and even frozen items without too much worry they’ll melt down or thaw before I get home.

But come summer, when temps down below can soar into the 90s, it gets a bit trickier.  I usually have to make sure I do grocery shopping last of my errands, and make a bee line from the supermarket up the hill.  And ice cream and frozen goods can start to melt out in the 40 minutes or so it takes to get home, so I frequently forgo purchasing them, or make sure it’s the last thing I put in my cart before checking out.

Sometimes, I’ll use “freezer” type bags you can purchase in an effort to keep things cool.

But the difficulties here are nothing compared to when I worked as a Park Ranger at Sequoia National Park in the Sierra.  There I worked at a remote location of Lodgepole.  The closest towns of any size were Visalia and Fresno and both were almost 1 1/2 – 2 hours driving each way.

Temperatures in the central valley of California frequently hit 100 degrees or more in summer, so refrigerated items could go bad very quickly.  The way us residents of the park used to work around this was to pack 2-3 coolers in the vehicle, fill them with ice and put the refrigerated perishable items in the cooler so they wouldn’t spoil on the way home.

Frozen things like ice cream or frozen dinners?  Forget it, they wouldn’t stand a chance.  No ice cream for us park rangers unless we bought it at the little market inside the park.

Because the drive was so long, us rangers would pool together to do shopping trips at specialty stores like Trader Joe’s for a bunch of us.  It would go something like this:

“I’m heading down to Fresno to do some shopping.  Anyone need anything?”

“Oh hey Leslie, are you going to Trader Joe’s?  Can you get me some of that trail mix they have?  And some of their Smooth and Mellow Coffee?  That would be great!”

I’d end up with a written list with an order for 4 or 5 people of items to buy and a completely packed car on the way up.   Good thing I had the back seat down and plenty of room for all those coolers and grocery bags!

And the one bonus to these grocery trips — the drive back home was filled with alpine beauty and sightings of wildlife along the way.  Something I never got living in the suburbs as a kid.  Priceless!

 

From record-setting heat to snow…

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Accidents along Highway 93 during snowstorm

Tractor-trailers jack-knifed into a ditch.  Small sedans sliding backwards down the hill.  It’s like navigating a slalom course of cars stuck hither and yon all over the roadway.  What started out as the routine commute to get home had turned into an endurance contest of navigating cars spinning out of control during the snowstorm.

Yesterday Denver set the all-time record high for the month of November topping out at 80 degrees.  As I ran along the Boulder Creek path in shorts and a T-shirt, it felt like running during a summer afternoon.  But fast forward twenty-four hours, and we now in the midst of winter, with temperatures hovering in the twenties.

Having become a seasoned veteran now of Rocky Mountain winters, I can’t say I’m surprised by the chaos that ensued today after the first snow of the winter hit not only the mountains but the plains and the urban corridor along the Front Range.  That first snow just seems to turn the road into a glazed, icy skating rink, much worse than the conventional snowy road encountered in mid-winter.  Although, apparently CDOT was surprised, hence the lack of plowing operations along Highway 93, the road that borders the Flatiron Mountains between Golden and Boulder.

As my husband drove home tonight, he encountered the carnage of this first snowstorm with cars and trucks strewn all over the roadway and the ditches alongside it.  The hills claimed more than a few victims as 2-wheel drive cars spun their wheels and in some instances slid backwards.

It didn’t get much better as he wound up the curves of Boulder Canyon, ascending the 3000 feet between Boulder and Nederland on icy and snow-packed roads.  Many had simply abandoned their cars at some point, perhaps hitchhiking or walking.

Having waited just a smidge too long to change over to my snow tires, I inched my way into Nederland to pick up some milk at the local B and F Market.  The snow came down so thickly it became difficult to see if I was actually on the pavement.  Large flakes hurtling at me, as my wipers went back and forth.

As I paid for my milk, I remarked to the cashier, “It’s really coming down out there.”

She smiled brightly, saying “Yeah, it will be my first time driving snowy roads in Colorado.  I just moved here from Wisconsin.  I’m glad I don’t have to take Magnolia.  It will be just a straight shot down Boulder Canyon on Highway 119.”

I looked at her a bit skeptically, knowing how treacherous the canyon can become.

“Well, the canyon can get really sketchy during storms like this.  Sometime it even closes because of buses sliding sideways or accidents.  There’s several times a winter, that people end up in the creek.”

She looked at me, wide-eyed and a bit shocked.  I hadn’t meant to put the fear of God in her, but at the same time, I didn’t want her thinking it would be a walk in the park.  It wasn’t the first time a new transplant had been given a reality check.

My first winter here, I worked for Eldora ski resort.  One of the staff there was new to the area, having just moved to Colorado from back east.  As we were getting ready to open the resort, we worked until late in the evening, and a winter storm moved in, dumping 26 inches of snow at Eldora.  Totally unprepared with her Volkswagen Jetta and summer tires, she became trapped in Nederland when Boulder Canyon closed.  She ended up spending the night in the one motel open in town.

Colorado, winter and its mountain roads had claimed yet another victim.  But given the vagaries of weather along the Front Range, give it another 24 hours, that snow will be gone and autumn will return once again.

 

Terrorism in a mountain town?

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Even in the mountains…  No place is exempt from potential terrorism or violence.  We like to think that our small mountain town is immune to crime, that we all get along.  And for the most part that is true.  Reading the police reports in the local Mountain-Ear newspaper, the reports are for the most part trivial and at some times amusing.  Reports of excessive dog barking at night.  A home owner having a dispute with his neighbor over firewood.  Compared to urban criminal activity, it’s fairly small.  After all, this is a community in which a majority of residents don’t even lock their doors.

But then Tuesday, that all changed.  What started out as a routine day quickly turned into something from an episode of Law & Order.  A backpack, something that looked to be innocently left by a hiker passing through, quickly became something else.  Here in our small mountain town that most Coloradans have never even heard of, terrorism reared its ugly head.

It’s strange to see the pictures, to hear the recounting of bomb squads from federal agencies being brought in.  To see news trucks, police vehicles, parked everywhere.  The whole B and F shopping center evacuated, empty for more than twenty-four hours.  I consider that shopping center the hub of Nederland, where I run into friends and neighbors.  For one whole day, it was devoid of life.  People unable to go to work, unable to run their business, people living in town afraid of what might happen.

Finally in the middle of the night, after a series of sirens, the bomb was safely detonated.  By the following afternoon, a stop at the shopping center seemed like business as usual.  You would never have dreamed that something so scary, something so big city-like had struck this small mountain town.

I like to think of our home and this town as my refuge, my safe haven of peace, quiet and nature to escape the craziness of the cities below.  But this incident reminded me that in 2016, even small mountain towns in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado are not immune to acts of terrorism.  Yes, amidst my woods, dirt back roads, and whistle of the wind, we too can be reminded of the world we live in.