Yesterday it hailed in Steamboat. That is apparently a very uncommon event. The hailstones were about marble sized. Also, according to the paper, there is a bear running around, getting into people’s houses and reaking havoc. It is pretty easily scared away though according to the article.
I should tell you a little about this charming town. First of all it is very fine arts friendly. There is live music performed in many different places a lot of the time. They have an opera company that is performing. There are art galleries. Music and art is a very integral part of the community. They have big name performing artists come and play on a regular basis. For example, Wendy Chen, classical pianist, will be here this week. Falstaff is being performed this week here. There is a Botanic Garden that is community grown and maintained. It is a very culturally rich town. The population is only about 12,000. It’s also a ranch town. There are western stores, catlle, sheep, and lots of ranches nearby. The nearest city is Denver, over 3 hours away.
Steamboat has a lot of sports. There is a lot of fishing for trout and other fish. There is a charming river that people like to tube down with white water. There is a rodeo, which we are going to on Friday. There is tennis, swimming, golf, and of course skiing. It is, after all, a ski resort. There is even a skateboard park.
The houses are a lot different than I am used to. They are mostly log homes with lots of glass. Most of them have tin roofs so that the snow can slide off more easily. One of the houses we drove by was for sale, and we checked the price. $3 million plus. Apparently Olympic athletes train here, even in the summer, and there are some very wealthy community members. Even some of the small, unassuming homes are very expensive.
Obviously there are also hot springs. We went to Strawberry Park to soak in the hot springs today. The hot springs mix with the cold stream to be just the right temperature. There is another hot spring for which the town is named. Apparently when the spring was discovered, it sounded like a steamboat.
Downtown is a funky cool place with eclectic shops. I enjoyed Off the Beaten Path, which is a book store. F. M. Light is a western wear clothing store, and John and I tried on stetsons and other hats. There is a candy store, clothing stores, nick-knack stores, and you can find a lot of one-of-a-kind items that are really cool. John dragged me out of a few stores before I spent money.
Surrounding the town are hills, ranches, mountains and meadows. There are lots of horses too. A lot of the towns folk like to ride bicycles or hike, and there are a ton of hiking trails right in town. This county is statistically the fittest in the country. There is a lot of great hiking trails just outside of town, to the tops of mountains.
Almost all of the people I’ve met here have been so nice and very friendly. They are down to earth and seem to be very genuine.
Besides going to Strawberry Park hot springs, we met with some of John’s friends, and had a big breakfast at Creekside. They serve eggs benedict done several different ways, omelets, and lots of other wonderful dishes. They are pretty popular here. The library here is amazing for a town of this size. I think it’s bigger than the Temple Library and there is a performance venue in one part of it. John took me on a tour of it today. We also saw the Botanic Gardens, window shopped downtown, had dinner at Aztec, and then took Sean to see Dawn of Planet of the Apes. On the way to our camp site, we saw a doe and it’s little tiny fawn right on the road. It’s been a pretty full day.
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