Walking Tour of Golden
Golden, Colorado: September 30, 2006

'Twas a beautiful 82-degree fall day in Golden, and I had finally decided to acknowledge the fact that I had killed my beautiful pine tree and take some pictures of the yard (all the other plants are doing extremely well). I planted shrub roses along the wall this spring: (I'm allergic to regular roses, but not shrub roses!)


Here's the Hummingbird Mint (from High Country Gardens in New Mexico). I refer to it as "hummingbird crack" because our hummingbirds would sometimes stop by hourly to eat the nectar. It's nice because we've had frequent hummingbird sightings from our patio.

The patio:

Here's another plant from High Country Gardens. I planted this one in May, when it was a little tiny root-bound single stalk plant in a pot that came in the mail. They said to give it room because it would get big - no kidding! My hope is that this butterfly bush (behind the snowball bush) will block the view of the power box.

View of the wall from the north end of the yard:

View from the side yard:

Front yard:

I was having such a good time taking pictures that it was time to take a walk! This actually turned out to be a 2-hour adventure.

Here's the view from our block as I headed toward the Tucker Gulch trail.

South Table Mountain from the Tucker Gulch trail:

I then walked downtown. Here's the bridge across Clear Creek in downtown Golden:

Clear Creek as seen from the bridge:

Here's our famous sign across Washington Avenue. It reads

Howdy folks!
Welcome to Golden
Where the West Lives

You can see the Buffalo Rose's patio (complete with motorcycles) where Kenrows used to be. (*sniff* Kenrows was such a nice greasy little diner kind of joint, but it burned down...due to a grease fire.)

Mike had been telling me about the yellow tree on campus, so I headed up the hill to find it. Here's the view from the other side of downtown, near where we lived in 1995.

Here's a picture of the campus - that's not the yellow tree he was talking about, but it is very tall and very yellow. It's an ash tree, like the little one on our hill. (to the left of the snowball bush and butterfly bush)

The Material Science Building:

Paragliders by the Mines "M" on Mount Zion:

Guggenheim, the main administrative building for Mines:

When I was in the Mines band, I always enjoyed the view of North Golden (where we now live) from the top of the football stadium. Here's my poor attempt at a panoramic. It doesn't line up exactly right, but you get the general idea...

It's Blaster!

Here's where I had my first apartment - in the 12th Street Historical District. The house is actually divided into 4 apartments: right and left, 1st floor and 2nd floor. Jake, Laurie, and I had the 2nd floor (plus attic) apartment on the right. My window was the attic window on the right.

My parents helped me furnish the apartment - the clock and rubber tree they bought are still in our living room.

This is the Guy Hill schoolhouse. It used to be in Golden Creek Canyon and is where Mike's Grandma Nicholls (mom's mom) went to school as a child. It was moved down here for historical preservation purposes.

I headed back toward Washington Avenue via the Clear Creek trail. Here's another view of Table Rock. You can also see the back of the Guy Hill schoolhouse.

Wave hello to Seven Trees from the bridge across highway 58!

Almost home! A couple of last pictures from the corner of 5th and Ford.