from california to colorado (Denver, Colorado Springs: house, job market, luxury)

[NatureGrl]

My husband I moved from northen CA to Colorado Springs in April. My husband is a veteran and graduated Magna *** Laude from college with a BS in Natural Resources Mgmt. I graduated with a high GPA and a BS in Natural Resources Mgmt. and a BA in Sociology. We are both in our early 30's with no children and while we love the people, the area and the weather, we have had horrible luck finding jobs! My husband accepted a seasonal position with the US Fish and Wildlife Service making low pay and no benefits. I left a job as the ED for a Watershed Conservancy in CA and have found no jobs in my field here. Desparate, I finally started applying for admin. jobs and I haven't received ONE call! I have an amazing resume/references and have NEVER had problems finding employment. In addition, minimum wage here in CO is $5.15/hour as opposed to CA's $7.25/hour! The few jobs that I have applied for pay very little and the cost of living is still fairly high here. We moved here to be close to my husband's family in Denver but we are afraid that we are going to have to make the long haul back to CA w/our two cats and dog before we go broke! Just another perspective on moving to the Springs... Good luck!

[MtnSurfer]

Wow brystireid,

My wife and I and our three young children were in the same boat as you guys about six months ago. We are also native Southern Californian's. I grew up at the beach (Hermosa, Manhattan, Redondo, Torrance) and lived there my whole life. I swore I would never leave the coast and my wife agreed.

But after visiting her sister in Denver we began thinking 'What if...???'

You see my wife was pregant with our third child and we were still renting in a very expensive community. We had basically given up on the idea of ever owning our own home with the avg. price of $750K near the coast.

Also the area was not very family/child friendly. And yes, the population explosion from every country and border was effecting our state greatly - increased polution, crime, infrastructure conjestion, lack of housing, land, etc...

So to make a long story a little shorter I started investigating housing and jobs and was blown away. We could actually afford to buy a nice house in Colorado near the beautiful Rocky Mountains! Also I found out my company(Northrop Grumman) has offices in Denver and Colorado Springs.

So with a little nervousness and a lot of excitement we decided to jump out of our oh so familiar lifestyles/comfort zone and give it a try.

Well we are now living in Colorado Springs and we love it here!!! We are just getting settled in to our new home and I my work environment.

We take the kids to many nice clean parks and the mountains almost every weekend. We are really enjoying the improvement in quality of life for our family.

As far as culture shock goes, I guess I experienced a little. Obviously ther is no beach here. But the beautiful mountans more than make up for it. The beaches in So. Cal. are so over crowded now and the water so poluted I wasn't surfing and enjoying it as much as I did growing up.

When you go any place here, especially the mountains there are just less people. So you can visit a lake and see maybe half a dozen folks fishing or walking/hiking around the area verses thousands on the sand at the beach. You can see some of our recent pics here:
http://imageevent.com/dereksurfs/spring2006

My biggest culture shock I guess was when we visited a little church and found out I knew the pastor (Scott) from California many years ago. So we went to his house/ranch after the service. After lunch he threw on his cowboy hat and said 'OK boys it is time to go shooting. Get in the pickup!' I had never shot a gun in my life and by the end of the day I had shot at from at least 4 kinds of weapons. I started to wonder if I stepped onto the compond at Waco. LOL... Now I joke with him about that day.

For my wife the biggest culture shock is No Trader Joes!!! Also some women still have the Big Hair mid western thing going on. But you would be surprised how much California has actually influenced the place. We have Wahoos tacos, Chipotle, and a whole bunch of other cool newer places to eat out at. When I flew out to find us a home I called my wife from Wahoos while eating fish tacos, watching a surf video and looking out the window at the Rocky Mountains. LOL...

Overall it is really great. Just try to research the neighborhoods and look for work in your areas of expertise. I think you will really love it here.

Derek

Originally Posted by brystireid

my husband and i, along with our three young children, are considering relocating from southern california to colorado springs. our main reasons being, high housing costs, poor education system, traffic, extreme heat, etc., etc.,. would anyone be able to give us some up sides and down sides to relocating. my husband and i were both born and raised in southern california. we realize that colorado will be different...but will it be a huge shock for us...as in culture shock? any info or thoughts would be great.
thanks
brysti

[Enigma]

WOW MtnSufer those pics are beautiful where abouts where they taken? I am currently looking for a job in CO Springs. Being young I don't care where I work as long as I can make my car payment and rent. Hopefully I will make the move soon .

[MtnSurfer]

Thanks Enigma,

Most of these shots were near Colorado Springs where we live - Garden of the Gods, Woodland Park and Boulder area (a little further).

But we have only been here a couple of months and plan to do a lot more exploring in the Rockies. If you really want to see some nice shots of the state check these out:

http://www.pbase.com/sonnyasehan/colorado_fall
http://www.jessespeer.com/galleries/colorado_photos/page01.html (broken link)
http://www.johnfielder.com/home.php

It is truly a beautiful place for anyone who likes the outdoors. Colorado is a lot smaller than California so if you live near the mountains (i.e.- Colorado Springs, Denver) it won't take you long to get up into them to enjoy.

Also Colorado Springs is not that large of a city by California standards (i.e. Los Angeles, San Diego, SF, etc...). So you could pretty much live anywhere is the city and work somewhere else in it and still get around. Personally I like the northern area better. It is newer and a little nicer/cleaner IMO. Some of the southern parts are known for higher crime. Since you are still fairly young you may want to live near the University. There are a lot of young outdoor oriented people throughout the city as a whole.

Even the middle age and older group (I guess I fit in to that crowd now) seem very active in outdoor sports, etc... (snowboarding, hiking, climbing, mountain biking, river rafting, fishing, ...).

If you haven't finished your ed. you may even check out some of the local colleges. They are pretty good and smaller than the large schools out west.

Derek

Originally Posted by Enigma

WOW MtnSufer those pics are beautiful where abouts where they taken? I am currently looking for a job in CO Springs. Being young I don't care where I work as long as I can make my car payment and rent. Hopefully I will make the move soon .

[robW]

The Springs doesn't have any ghettos per se, like in the bigger cities--that is, places that are distinguished by race or religion. There is no Chinatown, there are no slums.

It is also distinguished by "mixed" economic communities; moreso on the west side than the east side. Developers are not constrained by "infill" requirements, they can build most anywhere they want, so a development will go up, and the blank spaces will be built up later--sometimes years or decades later. The "West Side" is the only part of the city that has a sense of community, the other parts are just typical urban sprawl. In those areas you could be in any city in America: You willl have a MacDonalds, chain restaurants found in any city in America, strip malls, and chain stores. Phoenix, San Diego, the burbs of Cleveland, Orlando, or the East Side of Colorado Springs all look the same.

The West Side does, however, have a sense of community and history. Housing is mixed, some micro-communities are quite wealthy, others working class. Gated communities are inters*****d with pre-1925 housing. Downtown, for example, the streets running east-west that are north of Pikes Peak are named after western creeks; those running south of Pikes Peak are named after train stations that were part of the founder's railroad empire. Streets running north-south are named after mountain ranges. The only exception is Colorado Avenue, which in the old days was called Huerfano. If you were in Colorado Springs in the old days, and were giving directions going west, you would say "take Colorado" because the street led to Colorado City. In Colorado City, if you were giving directions heading east, you would say "take Colorado" because it was heading east, to Colorado Springs. As a side note, in the wee hours of the morning you can see deer walking down Colorado on the West Side.

Downtown Colorado Springs is spotty. They tried the "urban renewal" thing in the 1970s and tore down most of the old buildings. When the economy in the Springs is down (which it does about every 20 years or so), the buildings are empty; when it is up there are stores. Downtown is about to be strangled again, because they are closing down the freeway exits for freeway construction. That's sure to put a damper on the area.

The biggest misconception about the place is the weather, which is entirely unpredictable. The Springs does not get much snow. About once a decade it will get a doozy of a snowstorm that will dump 25" or more, but that's very rare. (The biggest such storm was, I think, in the 1920s, when the storm dumped 48" of snow overnight, and the next morning the sun came out.) They have about 3 1/2 months of summer, and usually lack a long spring or fall. Some years the falls are glorious, other years an ice storm will come in and the leaves will fall of the trees the next day. It has been known to snow in June, but that is extremely rare and more likely "up the pass" (in Green Mountain Falls, for example).

The place does seem to inspire the creative types. Groucho Marx--of the Marx Brothers fame--once drove a mule team and wagon between Cripple Creek and the Springs, until it ran way from him and went over a cliff. He was fired, moved to Hollywood, and started the comedy routine. Heinlein once lived and wrote there; as did Charles Schultz. Even the notorious L. Ron Hubbard once was there--the town is the basis for the location in his big science fiction novel "Battlefield Earth".

The mountains there are inspirational, if you can ignore the huge chunks of them that have been removed in gravel and mining operations. Those scars will be visible for the next 10,000 years. There is probably only one area there where you do NOT want to live: they are leveling off a mountain of mine tailings from the old United Gold Mines mining operations on the west side and building houses on top of it. Those tailings are sterilized soil (from the chemicals used to extract the gold)--nothing has grown on them for the past 50 years. Also, the tailings will continue to settle for the next 100 years, so expect the foundation of your house to crack if you buy one there.

The Springs, overall, is an interesting place. It's rarely boring.

[corndog]

Mtnsurfer, you are very correct about your perception of Colorado life and life in So. Cal. As my wife and experienced ourselves there we know the same issues. We live in Centennial now and love it. I used to surf and lived most of my life in Huntington Beach.

And for the record Derek, that is my name too! Twilight zone anyone??

[nursenerd]

We are considering the springs vs LA(Ventura). My husband is in law enforcement as well. He tested for springs in March and we'll here in Aug. He also is going in July to test for LAPD. We want recreation, good place for family and low crime. I don't want to be struggling financially or scrared to go out of the house. What are you suggestions?

[nursenerd]

Very interesting reading your reply. I'm leaning towards the Springs and my husband is more towards LA. Were from Houston, TX. Our city has taken a dramatic turn for the worse with the influx of Katrina evacuees. Is the beach enough to miss to make the decision to go to CA. I've only seen snow once in my life!

[annnjon]

This is a great forum with great info. My husband and I have our house on teh market in Florida and would like to move there when it sells. We miss living by a big city but love the foothills of evergreen. we haven't been yet and have decided not to go until we sell , but are torn between the bigger houses in communities in HR and Parker vs. the beauty of Evergreen. A couple of our considerations are commute and if evergreen is too isolated for kids. Our child is just two now but if we stay we wonder if he would be better off in a complex...but the trees!!!!!!!!! Did I mention we live in Florida? I never knew I could miss trees so much!! anyway does anyone have any info on pay for RNs in Denver area and good hospital to work for ?Or ones to avoid? Any of this or other ifo is greatly appreciated.
Thanks !

[2bindenver]

there is a shortage of nurses here in Denver. Many have hiring bonuses.

There is not a hospital that I would steer you from.

More house for the money in HR, spend less and live in Conifer. Same county, just cheaper.