Are you in the Boulder area for the summer? Check out these ideas to explore and spice up your summer!

1. Visit Boulder Creek

Take a dip or a ride down Boulder Creek to cool off from the summer sun. The average temperature in Boulder Creek is . Be sure to check the before tubing down the creek. 

2. Spend the day at Chautauqua

Open from 5 a.m. – 11 p.m., Chautauqua Park is open throughout the day for an adventure. The is a fan favorite with a beautiful landscape view and incredible rock formations. A total of 3.1 miles round trip, the hike is rated moderate to difficult. For a more relaxing activity, hang a hammock and spend time enjoying the area’s natural beauty. 

3. Shop at the Boulder Farmers Market

Open on Saturday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Wednesday from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on 13th Street between Arapahoe Ave. and Canyon Blvd., the offers fresh produce, baked goods, hand-crafted products and more. Support local farmers and entrepreneurs and, during the second week of each month, see live music and artisan shows. 

4. Enjoy the Chautauqua Summer Series

Check out one of the concerts at the Chautauqua Auditorium. Featuring a variety of artists including the Gipsy Kings, Jesse Cook, Kenny G and more, this series offers a variety of genres. Tickets are available on .

5. Visit the Pearl Street Mall

Walk along Boulder’s to grab a bite to eat, shop or people watch. 

6. See a show at Red Rocks Amphitheater

Visit this amid the rock formations to see a show, do yoga or see a film “on the rocks.” This summer Glass Animals, Zeds Dead, Halsey and many other artists will perform. See the schedule at . 

7. Explore Rocky Mountain National Park

Take a drive up to Estes Park to visit . At the park, you can hike, drive the scenic routes and view the wildlife. You will need a to enter the park and buy a park entrance pass for your car and the people in it. 

8. Listen to Bands on the Bricks on Pearl Street

Each Wednesday from June 15 through Aug. 3 on the 1300th block of Pearl Street, see an . The beer garden will open at 5:30 p.m., openers perform at 6 p.m. and the headliners play from 7– 9 p.m. 

9. Dine outside in Boulder

Soak up the sun on one of . At West End Tavern and Rosetta Hall, enjoy rooftop dining as you sit above Pearl Street. Relax at Japango or on Oak at 14th’s patio. Visit the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse to sit outside in the courtyard and enjoy afternoon tea or dinner. 

10. Traverse the Boulder Creek Path

Take a walk, run or bike down the 5.5 mile . The path parallels downtown, east of town and west towards the mountains. Cool off with a dip in the creek.

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  Relax and have some fun!

1. Lay back and watch the clouds. What interesting things can you see?
2. Work on your tan, maybe use that time to read that book that you've been meaning to finish.
3. Play fetch with your dog. Don't have one? There's always plenty around, see if you can borrow one.
4. Enjoy a nice picnic, and try to impress your signifigant other with some hors d'oeuvres.
5. It's a time-honored tradition to throw the frisbee around.
6. Wanna try something new? Slacklining is the perfect combination of fun and challenging.
7. Set up your hammock and sleep away the afternoon.
8. Invite your friends. Just sit around and talk, enjoy their company.
9. Practice your amateur photography. There's always something interesting and photoworthy on the quad.
10. Whatever you want! Let your imagination run wild, and just relish in the great Boulder sunshine. 

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Ralphie-Shaped Swimming Pool

2014

Opened at CU Rec Center

68

Thousand gallons of water (volume)

7

Months in use, annually, give or take

One

Pool volleyball net and basketball hoop

150-200

Student users on a sunny summer day

1

Weekly movie and music evening (summer)

The Violinist

The Grammy-winning Takács Quartet, based at CU Boulder since 1986, has a new member for the first time in more than a decade. Harumi Rhodes, a CU Boulder assistant professor of violin, has joined the globe-trotting classical ensemble as second violinist. Founding second violinist Károly Schranz retired from the group May 1, after more than 40 years. The quartet, which originated in Hungary in 1975, now has an even number of women and men for the first time.

Heard Around Campus

 

Imagine 20,000 people trapped in a metal box for days. That’s pretty scary.”

 

— CU Boulder engineering professor Keith Porter, who recently estimated the number of people likely to get stuck in elevators following a major San Francisco Bay Area earthquake.

A Lover’s Touch

When Pavel Goldstein’s wife, Alexandra, was in labor with their daughter, Alexandra felt less pain while he was holding her hand.

This made Goldstein wonder: “Can one really decrease pain with touch, and if so, how?”

So the CU Boulder postdoctoral researcher devised an experiment, and the results are in: A loving human touch can, indeed, ease physical pain.

In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, he and collaborators found that women subjected to mild heat pain reported less discomfort when they held hands with their partners than they did without the benefit of touch.

The study, involving 22 heterosexual couples, showed that holding hands synchronized the couples’ breathing, heart rate and brain waves, which correllated with diminished pain.

“It appears that pain totally interrupts this interpersonal synchronization between couples and touch brings it back,” said Goldstein, of CU Boulder’s Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab.

For additional details, visit CU Boulder Today. 
 

Photo © iStock/bob_sato_1973

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In Boulder this spring there was fresh talk of bears: Observers noted their curiosity about life east of Broadway, prompting questions about how to ensure harmony among their species and ours. Perhaps, some say, bear-safe trash cans, required west of Broadway, would be wise east of it, too.

As far as anyone noticed, bears kept out of CU’s campus trees this year. But animal life abounds here, refreshingly so. Come spring, ducks court in the pond atop the water cascade by the Woodruff Cottage. Migrating geese squawk on the sward. American robins banter in the morning.

One April afternoon I spied 10 bunched turtles sunning on a single log in Varsity Lake. The turtles will lounge in the lake all summer and fall.

CU Boulder’s cherished proximity to natural grandeur is more than a matter of adjacency; we nourish wildlife here. Wandering campus aimless but alert, your cup could runneth over.

Contact Eric Gershon at editor@colorado.edu. 

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Serenity is found at the east entrance of Norlin Library in the Sundial Plaza. The plaza leads straight into the bustling Laughing Goat Coffeehouse and the main library. It also contains the John Garrey Tippit Memorial Sundial, dedicated in May 1995 by the John H. Tippit family in honor of thier son John Tippit (A&S'69), who died one year after graduating. 

Photo by Glenn Asakawa 

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Life at CU Boulder shifts gears after commencement but hardly goes dormant. The amphitheater rings with Elizabethan eloquence during the annual Shakespeare festival. Summer session students amble well-trod pathways. This year, for the second in a row, a Grateful Dead offshoot will electrify Folsom Field.

Still, come mid-May, a certain serenity settles over campus. Turtles queue along drifting logs on Varsity Lake. Frisbees arc above open lawns. The libraries close a little earlier.

The pair in this CU Heritage Center photograph, undated but thought to be of 1950s vintage, seem to be making the most of a pleasant day outside Norlin Library.

If you have a favorite memory of CU in summertime, we’d love to hear it. Write editor@colorado.edu. 

Photo courtesy CU Heritage Center

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