Creative Writing: Rocky Mountain High

Online Creative Writing Assignment: Write a 250-word description of a place with "character," revealing the elements that suggest its history.

Rocky Mountain High

When the rest of the country left the sixties, Boulder stayed behind in its tie-dyed, rocky-mountain-high world.

Boulder’s backdrop is the jagged, white Rocky Mountains. This picket fence separates it from the rest of the world on three sides. On the fourth side is Denver, and those in Denver think of Boulder as their slightly-crazy, still-trendy little sister. Those of us who live in Boulder know better. Denver sold its soul for stadiums and sprawling mansions and spendy restaurants.

The residents are nicknamed yuppie hippies because of their designer dreadlocks and high-priced, eco-friendly clothes. They eat organic food and smoke hydroponic weed. All real estate in Boulder is expensive because no one is allowed to build. A lifestyle of simplicity very few could afford.

We eat at The Kitchen, a restaurant whose practices embody everything the town lives for: locally grown food, wind-powered energy, and a compost pile for the uneaten table scraps. The lower level is a sunny restaurant; the small menu comprised of meals like organic beef risotto with haystack chevre and saba for $24. Upstairs is a dark, hip wine lounge.

Along the Pearl Street Mall, we peruse the eco-this, natural-that shops. Between shops, we wind our way through the homeless and street performers and college students. We are handed a brochure detailing how 9/11 was an inside job.

A ticket for our expired parking meter flaps from our windshield wiper. Seated on the curb next to our car are two college students, stoned. They hold joints in their fingers with the same carelessness people elsewhere hold cigarettes.

“Only in Boulder,” Dave mumbles.