Where's the trees?

[angelaf]

Yeah... We were looking at Klamath Falls OR which is about 12 hours from Salt Lake but the job prospects there looked bleak.

Salt Lake would make sense except that I have no desire to live there. My SO lived there previously and the lifestyle and people from that life are the opposite of what I want. We want a new start somewhere fresh where we've never lived before. It's hard to know anything for sure until we go there, but being within a reasonable driving distance to the mountains is ok with me. Bummer about the plains, though... all the pics I've been looking at of all three cities make it look like the mountains are right there.

[formercalifornian]

I don't want to give you the wrong impression. There are plenty of suburbs in the foothills, but the city (Denver) is on the plains. Access to the mountains varies depending on location in the metro area. Some suburbs snug right up against the mountains, while others are a good hour away by highway.

As far as trees, you're not going to find midwestern-style forests here, but there are plenty of places that have mature landscaping. It's just that massive leafy, shade trees aren't native. They have been planted over the course of many decades by homeowners and neighborhood associations. For example, in my neighborhood, the house behind me sports a cottonwood that is probably 50-feet tall. It was planted thirty years ago when the neighborhood was new, and it has thrived with good care, but it wouldn't have grown there naturally. In the foothills, the native vegetation leans toward conifers, with a sprinkling of aspen.

Here's a link to an overhead photo of Denver that shows you just how flat it is.

[angelaf]

Wow, that is crazy. I wish we could just move to North Carolina like I wanted to, it's so much cheaper there and green as can be, and the mountains are wonderful. Maybe in a few years we can do that. But, gotta head west for a while first. I wish California wasn't so expensive (and such a sh*t hole)...

[formercalifornian]

What's stopping you from going to NC if that's what you really want to do? I live quite a ways from my family, but we fly back and forth a few times a year.

[angelaf]

My SO has a 5-year old son in Utah. We just don't get to see him enough because his mom won't let him fly on his own yet... so that means every time he comes out, it's 3 plane tickets (two for the person who flies out there to get him and bring him back, and one for the boy) and right now, it's too expensive to do that often enough. Once he's old enough to spend the summers with us, we'll probably head South, but for now, we need to be within a day's drive.