Is Colorado Right for Me? (Denver, Colorado Springs: find a job, camping, tax)

[5thIndian]

AwayfromOC,
I am from the east and when I lived in CO years ago for a few years I missed being near the ocean after 1 or so years there. (driveable even-which you will certainly not be in CO) Hard to anticipate that "land locked" phenomenon but it happens to a lot of people who come from coastal states. It is noticably brown there too for potential transplants like us. (Evergreen being greener tho/Boulder and Ft. Collins not so much.) I was there prob 4 times last year and each time the brown stood out more to me. This leads me to mention Colordado's water issues. I think this issue should be investigated especially if you are thinking about plunking down lots of $'s for RE there. Research that issue on this forum. Lots written about it. It will help you to ask the right questions before buying too.
Your up close and personal visit will tell you a lot. I read the same lists, visited the same areas (some) and it really is true that you can't go by them at all in measuring whether a location is right for you. I met with several realtors while out there last year and it is not cheap in those areas; I wonder how much less financial stress you will have there.
[mod cut]
Don't get me wrong I love CO. I am a huge ski enthusiast and instructor which is the ONLY reason I am considering CO again but my kids will be out of hs school and I am newly divorced so looking for something diff than you are.
--I think if you have a intact family you will be happy anywhere you choose to locate if you are all on the same page about it.
Good luck.

[David Aguilar]

Originally Posted by AwayfromOC

Hi,

My husband and I live in Orange County, California and we want out! We are looking for another state to live in and think it might be Colorado. Here's what we are trying to get away from and get more of...

Get away from:

Over priced real estate.

$350K is more money here than it is in CA.

Originally Posted by AwayfromOC

Neighbors that are Douches/Get more of:Down to earth people who care about the community they live in. People who don't check out what brand of jeans your wearing on a daily basis and if you are keeping up with your botox injections.

Please don't move here, or away from CA for people. You will find douches everywhere, I guarantee it. Douches could just be more prevalent in the area you are in, but if you put yourself in a near-identical area here (or anywhere) you will probably find the same douches.

Originally Posted by AwayfromOC

Concern: I have been living in CA since I was 7 and I am a little worried about living through the winter. Now I know what snow is like, we go up to Big Bear in the winter, ski, hike, etc. But that's just on the weekends. Transplants how hard is it to adjust? Shoveling out your driveway before work, ice patches on the roads, etc.

It is only hard if you come into winter with a bad attitude about it. If you really don't like snow, it probably wouldn't behoove you to come here.

Originally Posted by AwayfromOC

I'd appreciate any advice and by the way I am a registered Democrat. Will I be run out of town?

Do you feel like you are being run out of OC? If so, the southern suburbs of Denver probably aren't for you.

But, if you think you can handle being around people with a different political ideology from you, you'll be just fine. I don't think moving to a liberal area would keep you away from conservatives and vice versa.

I live in a fairly liberal district (Obama signs everywhere, including my window ), yet most people I work with are Republicans. A few days ago, a co-worker asked how I, a Democrat, can handle working with nothing but Republicans. I replied, just because everyone around me is Republican, doesn't mean I need to conform to their ways and views, I know how to stick up for myself and defend my views. And, I can still be friends with Republicans, even if we disagree.

Therefore, I don't find politics to be much of an issue, unless you are afraid of a debate.

Like vegaspilgrim said, throw the lists away. I personally would go crazy in most of the Money winners. Those places are picked based on several exclusionary criteria, and are seemingly only suited for white-collar commuters.

Also, to quote vegaspilgrim again, move to Colorado because you want to move to Colorado, not because you are trying to escape California.

[Katiana]

Originally Posted by AwayfromOC

Hi,

My husband and I live in Orange County, California and we want out! We are looking for another state to live in and think it might be Colorado.

I'd appreciate any advice and by the way I am a registered Democrat. Will I be run out of town?

Why would you even ask that? We have a Democratic governor, one senator, as several representatives. This "red state" stuff is a bunch of hooey, and ony refers to the presidential vote last election. I just got off the phone with my niece minutes ago; she was at Obama's speech at Mile High last night. She said there were two buses of Democrats from Colorado Springs! I think you'd fit in fine.

[sunshine7793]

If you have lived in SoCal since the age of seven you will find the weather here to be an extreme change. The winters here are cold like nothing you can imagine. Not that much snow just cold. It freezes here at night six months of the year. When I take the kids to school temperatures are often in the teens. And the cold produces extreme low humidity. When we moved from OC we found humidifiers to be essential. But even with them we use tons of lotion, chapstick, vaseline all winter to fight off cracked skin. And we've had several sinus infections in our family due to the weather.

The wind is another story. It blows often and it blows hard. I believe the front range is one of the windiest places in the US. What really bugs me is that when we get the occasional warm day in the winter (50 degrees) it is often accompanied by high winds. And when I say high winds I'm talking about something much worse than the Santa Ana winds. These are the kind of high winds that blow your patio furniture away.

Then there is the sun. I love the sun. But not this sun. There is very little atmosphere here at 5000 ft to filter the sun so the sun feels hot. It's weird. Go for a walk during the winter in 30 degree weather and one side of your body is freezing while the other is burning from the sun. And in the summer it is really bad. Even short walks in the mid day sun are painful and dangerous (cancer).

The best time of the year is the fall. After the thunderstorms and mosquitos are gone. But it is short lived. The last two years the neighborhood kids called it an early night (8pm) on Haloween when the temperatures had dropped below 25 degrees.

What does it all mean? A big change is lifestyle. You don't do things spontaneously as in So Cal. You plan ahead based on the weather. And even then you can't be sure. Do you chance putting up the awning for the kids birthday party or do you wait until the last minute to see if a storm, wind or whatever will come up? As I said it is tremendous difference from SoCal.

[katzenfreund]

Folks, please let us stick to the topic and not make this a discussion of abortion, climate change etc. If you want to discuss those types of topics, please go to the Politics and other Controversies forum. We try and keep the state forums friendly and topics such as those that I mentioned tend to get ugly.
Thank you!

[Katiana]

Originally Posted by sunshine7793

The best time of the year is the fall. After the thunderstorms and mosquitos are gone. But it is short lived. The last two years the neighborhood kids called it an early night (8pm) on Haloween when the temperatures had dropped below 25 degrees.

Halloween Weather Facts And Take Our Trick-or-Treat Quiz! - Denver Weather News Story - KMGH Denver

Denver Halloween Snow Statistics

Here are some links that talk about the urban legend that it always snows in Denver on Halloween. LIke all urban legends, this one has some basis in fact. I always planned my kids' costumes to fit over a parka, or to incorporate a sweat shirt (with heavy layers underneath). Compared to western Pennsylvania, fall is loooong. We are already feeling a little fall weather at night, and it can go until well past Thanksgiving some years. There will probably be some snow mixed in there, but it is short lived, followed by weeks of warm (50s-60s), sunny weather.

[jazzlover]

Most Colorado natives look at fall as the prettiest season in most of Colorado. Warmish days, cool nights, without a lot of precipitation. As Kat says, there can be some nasty fall storms, but they are usually short-lived, followed by days of nice weather.

My advice to ANYONE who wants to live in Colorado--visit in March. That, by far, is usually the crappiest weather period of the year. Spring really doesn't exist in Colorado--it just lurches between winter and summer. If you can stand the spring months in Colorado (that is usually when the natives go somewhere else on vacation--that should tell you something), then you might like living here.

As to the general question, "Is Colorado for me?"--I wish people would ask, "Am I suitable for Colorado?" Far too many people are moving here and then trying to remake Colorado into what they left. Plenty of we "long-timers" resent that, and--in turn--come to resent the people trying to perpetrate that change. Many of us liked Colorado just fine the way it was. Colorado is already looking way too much like California--we need no more of that.

[Katiana]

My daughter was born March 14. The day before she was born it was 70 degrees in Louisville. The day we came home, March 17, it was snowing. The weather changes a great deal in March. If you don't stay for at least two weeks, you will either think March is incredibly snowy and miserable, or sunny and 70.

[AwayfromOC]

Originally Posted by sunshine7793

If you have lived in SoCal since the age of seven you will find the weather here to be an extreme change. The winters here are cold like nothing you can imagine. Not that much snow just cold. It freezes here at night six months of the year. When I take the kids to school temperatures are often in the teens. And the cold produces extreme low humidity. When we moved from OC we found humidifiers to be essential. But even with them we use tons of lotion, chapstick, vaseline all winter to fight off cracked skin. And we've had several sinus infections in our family due to the weather.

The wind is another story. It blows often and it blows hard. I believe the front range is one of the windiest places in the US. What really bugs me is that when we get the occasional warm day in the winter (50 degrees) it is often accompanied by high winds. And when I say high winds I'm talking about something much worse than the Santa Ana winds. These are the kind of high winds that blow your patio furniture away.

Then there is the sun. I love the sun. But not this sun. There is very little atmosphere here at 5000 ft to filter the sun so the sun feels hot. It's weird. Go for a walk during the winter in 30 degree weather and one side of your body is freezing while the other is burning from the sun. And in the summer it is really bad. Even short walks in the mid day sun are painful and dangerous (cancer).

The best time of the year is the fall. After the thunderstorms and mosquitos are gone. But it is short lived. The last two years the neighborhood kids called it an early night (8pm) on Haloween when the temperatures had dropped below 25 degrees.

What does it all mean? A big change is lifestyle. You don't do things spontaneously as in So Cal. You plan ahead based on the weather. And even then you can't be sure. Do you chance putting up the awning for the kids birthday party or do you wait until the last minute to see if a storm, wind or whatever will come up? As I said it is tremendous difference from SoCal.

sunshine7793,

Thank you for your vivid description of the weather in CO. I didn't realize it was so windy there. I would imagine, when it's cold that's a killer. I was looking on YouTube and saw of video of a hail storm with hail the size of tennis balls. It was pretty incredible. My husband is originally from Connecticut. He keeps telling me I'll adjust, but then again he really want out of CA. Is the weather a little more mild/warmer towards the Colorado Springs area? I've had people tell me that area is not hit as hard as the Denver area.

[AwayfromOC]

sunshine7793,

Thank you for your vivid description of the weather in CO. I didn't realize it was so windy there. I would imagine, when it's cold that's a killer. I was looking on YouTube and saw of video of a hail storm with hail the size of tennis balls. It was pretty incredible. My husband is originally from Connecticut. He keeps telling me I'll adjust, but then again he really want out of CA. Is the weather a little more mild/warmer towards the Colorado Springs area? I've had people tell me that area is not hit as hard as the Denver area.