Yeah - the home/apt. values were kind of a bummer as a buyer/renter. The day I was leaving there was an article in the Post about how for the first time in many decades, almost as many people are moving out of the state as are moving in. So the the boom may be ebbing. The greater Denver area reminds me a bit of the expansion the Atlanta area went through.
A number of locals complained about the traffic to me, which, as a resident of Chicago and environs for the past 30+ years, I found pretty funny. People say that almost wherever they live though, if the area is developing a lot, or the roads aren’t keeping up with growth.
Thanks for the thoughts. I had just forgotten how much I used to love spending time in the mountains, and I’ve often complained that there aren’t any around here. So looking forward to it.
You might consider Fort Collins. A college town with it’s head screwed on right, and where CSU doesn’t overwhelm. I grew up in Toledo, OH and know “A squared” (Ann Arbor) well. Also did time in Wisconsin and have a familiarity with Madison.
A local and CU Boulder alum described FOCO/CSU to me as “the anti-Boulder” ;-). No disrespect intended to Boulderites, it’s a cool place to hang out and Eldora ski area is just 30 minutes up the canyon.
Also, FOCO is a great music town with a newly-built recording venue. Check out:
This place also has a jazz club in the basement with live jazz Wed – Sun. (https://acegilletts.com/)
Before I retired, we spent two years traveling to interesting places to check them out: Seattle, Olympia, Coeur d’Alene, Boise, Salt Lake, Cheyenne, Golden (CO), etc. We stumbled into Fort Collins due to a change in travel plans and were instantly hooked. Perfect size, 55 minutes from DIA, 55 minutes from Boulder, small enough so you can traverse the city in 12 minutes, but big enough (~160,000) that CSU does not dominate it. Cool bike trails. Dog friendly. Maybe 20 craft breweries (http://fortcollinsbreweryguide.com/breweries.aspx ) and several craft distilleries.
Definitely check it out. Not sure if the new forum supports private messaging. I haven’t fully figured it out yet. But give a shout out when you visit and I’ll show you around if you want.
BTW – check the Colorado Audio Society website for meeting dates. There’s a chance that the Nov. meeting will be held at the new PS Audio facility. You’re travel schedule may line up . . .
Private messaging here is easy. Just click on the avatar of the person you want to contact. In the resulting pop-up window, click on “message” in the upper right.
You will loooove it there, especially at this instance in your life. Sounds a great proposition.
Hell I’ve only formally resided in 2 cities my whole life -Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Bogota (Colombia). And it was hardly my choice
Dad was a famous political columnist, he had headed France Presse and been a personal advisor to DeGaulle (! ) , ran the first radio/TV channel in the country and had quite a bit of influence. Needless to say, the military coup that was ruling Argentina didn’t appreciate his radio show in particular.
Pressure was piling and one evening we get a telephone call, I answer and it’s Mr. Ramon Camps head of the military regime’s torture fraction. Passed it on to Dad, it was right the time of the Falklands invasion crisis with England, he threatened us and within the week we (Mom, Dad, Sis and myself) moved to Colombia in a hurry leaving everything behind or we’d have been taken.
That was 1982. They took us graciously and Dad attempted to keep writing from “clandestine” quarters basically the house Virgilio Barco lent us in Bogota. Unfortunately Mr Barco was also an honest, patriotic polititian so Dad did most of his writing and ourselves all of our living… indoors, with an entourage looking out for bombs and stuff and no real appreciation of the lovely city of Bogota. I did get my hands on Dad’s Sony STR set though.
About a year living there almost incognito the druglords (Escobar & Co.) had targeted us so it was time we got moving again. Thankfully democracy in Argie was restored in 1983 and we went back to our mundane lives until today.
So a calm, withdrawn life outdoors discovering every inch of Pikes Peak does sound like a magnificent idea. Especially if you compared it to much more “hectic” surroundings i.e. dodging bullets and making sure nobody has poisoned your dish!
Sounds like you had an “interesting” childhood ; )
Give us time - the bomb-throwing could start any day around here. There certainly seems to be a lot of shooting as a rule of thumb. But at least in CO, I could go hole up somewhere ; )
There’s a nice jazz bar on the roof (Sunset Lounge) with live jazz Wed – Sat.