Once a year on her birthday, Alice Weidel sits down with her wife over a glass of red wine. The couple ask themselves: Is it all worth it? The hatred, the anonymous threats, the public exposure.

Sitting picturesquely in the foothills of the hiking and skiing mecca of the Rocky Mountains, Boulder isn't known as America's fittest city for nothing. Intimidatingly hale and hearty, it's a place where bars and restaurants are dead by 9pm.