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Thursday, June 4, 2015

NCAR Wednesday

As I write this, the weather outside is wild.   We're in the middle of an intensely electrical storm, the sky is flashing constantly.    Our county is under a Tornado and Severe Thunderstorm Watch.

Wednesday we met John and Pam and Steve and MonaLiza at NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) in Boulder.   The buildings were designed by I.M.Pei in 1960 and were inspired by the Anasazi cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde.

NCAR's Mesa Laboratory is located atop Table Mesa at the foot of the Flat Irons sandstone cliffs, approached via a long road gently winding through gradually ascending grassy meadows.







NCAR is a federally funded facility dedicated to understanding  the behavior of the atmosphere and related physical, biological and social systems.    We took a one hour guided tour.   We will probably go back again on our own and just wander through the exhibits.   There were many interactive displays and we didn't really take enough time to read and understand them as we moved along on the tour.

Dave and John play in a cloud


architect I.M.Pei and some of his inspirations
Steve explains what he did in his "other life"


After the tour we all went into Boulder for lunch.    The Bohemiam Biergarten wasn't quite open when we arrived so we walked around on the Pearl Street Mall, some of us window shopping, some of us buying....

As usual, the lunch was delicious, the beer good and cold and the conversation lively.

John prepares to wolf down Bohemian Biergarten's
version of Rochester's Garbage Plate!
     Steve and MonaLiza will leave the area tomorrow, heading east.   We look forward to crossing paths with them again in the fall or winter.  

Another great time with good friends
Life is Good

3 comments:

  1. I hope Jesse and Erin made out all right last night. Looks like Boulder got hit pretty hard. Hope you are all right up there:) We lucked out with the worst storms staying to the north and south. We did have two hail downpours, one at 10:00 and one at 1:00AM. Boy, is the hail ever loud inside. We thought we were being bombed. Thanks goodness the hail wasn't too large. I couldn't believe the photos of them shoveling hail in Denver!

    It was a very fun day learning, eating, and spending time with friends:)

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  2. The continuous display of lightning (last night for us) is unbelieveable, isn't it?! We are travelling tomorrow and heading into more weather...it's crazy!

    It's nice that you have the whole summer to find a time to return to NCAR. Isn't it great to stay in an area with a great variety of decent restaurants?

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  3. Everytime I looked at clouds today especially in CO, I can say that it is a storm cloud thanks to that tour. There are really much more to read and lucky for you , you can go back and linger a little longer.
    Steve and I really enjoyed our outdoor activities and hanging out with our favorite friends and bloggers.

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