Colorado Living - Part I - Why I Moved To Colorado

Certain songs make me feel nostalgic for certain times in my life. For example, any song from Guster's Ganging Up On The Sun reminds me of our first road trip to Mammoth. Now I need to listen to that CD every time we drive to Mammoth.

I created a playlist for our road trip from Colorado to California and I listened to one of my favorite songs from that playlist the other morning they are all my favorite songs and it brought me back to that feeling I had when we were embarking on our road trip. It made me think...

I'm going to create a little series on life and living in Colorado. 

For those of you who are new around here, I am originally from Michigan, moved to California after college, a few years later moved to Colorado for a year and a half and then moved back to California. Confusing, huh? Well stick around and you'll see I move around a lot and pretty much haven't figured out where I want to be yet.

When I left Michigan back in 2006, I was excited to embark on a new adventure and drive across the country to my new home in California. 

On my way from Michigan to California I passed though many states, Colorado being one of them. As soon as I drove west of Denver, I began to fall in love. Leadville, CO was the destination for day two of our drive, a small mountain town at 10,152 ft.

This was the exact corner I drove around and decided I wanted to live in Colorado. I thought it was so beautiful and joked I could just stay in Colorado and go no further. I had just driven across 1/3 of the country that was flat and full of cornfields. Looking back, I would have thought a pile of dirt was beautiful.

Colorado only got better from there.

Do you like the old school time and date stamp on my pictures?

As I drove on though Colorado and made my way to California, a small piece of Colorado came with me. I loved the crisp air, the mountains and as an avid snowboarder I thought I could really come to like living in Colorado.

California was never meant to be permanent. After settling into California, I made a plan. I'd live in California for awhile then move to Colorado for a year before moving back home to Michigan. 

That plan almost happened.

Colorado always lived in the back of my mind and when I did finally get the opportunity to move there, I thought it was meant to be. I jumped at the chance. I had been dating M for about a year and a half when he told me there was a job opening at his company in Denver. I asked if he had put in for it and two weeks later we had our lives packed in the back of a uhaul trailer. 

As I packed my studio apartment I began to have regrets about the move. Things moved too fast and I didn't have a chance to think. I felt heavy and had a pit in my stomach. After all, I had never been to Denver. I had just driven though it. I knew nothing about Denver. If I had only spoke up, at that time it wasn't too late.

At the time I was more excited about the road trip and the places we'd see than I was to actually live in Denver. That wasn't the greatest sign.

The reason I am back in California right now is because our move to Denver had been so fast and not thought out.  

Do I regret moving to Colorado? No. Living in Colorado gave us the chance to see and do things we wouldn't have otherwise had the chance to do. It also made our relationship stronger. We had passes to many of the ski resorts, traveled, hiked, camped, visited national parks, drank a lot of Colorado craft beer, toured breweries, and camped some more. I will admit Colorado does have some of the best craft beer around. 

There were things I really disliked about Denver. I really didn't enjoy the majority of my time there. The summers were too hot, my commute to work was too long, driving in the snow would sometimes turn that into a 2 or 3 hour commute - one way, I hated my job, the weather was dry and I was landlocked. No ocean, lakes or rivers worth writing home about.

Looking back, I don't completely regret my decision to move to Colorado. If I could do it all over again I would have probably chose to move north, to Oregon or Washington where I could still live near the coast. 

But everything happens for a reason...

Stay tuned for more Colorado Living - brewery tours, camping, snowboarding and national parks!