Boulder, CO

I just recently returned from a business trip to Boulder, CO. There are three primary features about Boulder that are most apparent to an easterner such as myself. The first is the obvious and most expected one: the western skyline of enormous foothills to the rockies. The second and more subtle one is the near complete lack of tree cover. While there are evergreens dotting the mountains, and cultivated hardwoods in the city itself, everything else is just desert prairie. As an easterner, I've become accustomed to the privacy and "coziness" provided by trees. I've talked about this before, but I suppose I thought it important enough to say again. The third and final feature, is probably the most overlooked: the prairie dogs. Boulder, for reasons related to its past hippy culture and present ultra-liberalism, has passed a city ordinace banning the execution of prairie dogs. Since there aren't enough eagles, falcons, and hawks in the whole world to suppress them, thier population has exploded. There isn't a square meter of open space near a water source that isn't densely populated with the little buggers.

If I do end up moving to this strange and barren land, I may have to train Ollie to hunt these guys.