Life in the Valley! (Denver, Colorado Springs: 2010, new home, construction)

[ScottyDoesKnow]

To quote Peter Griffin from Family Guy. . . ."is pretty freakin' sweet!"

Last you guys heard, I was looking to leave my home in Tennessee to relocate and finish school all the way out in Colorful Colorado.

So now I've been relocated here in Alamosa for about a month now attending school at Adams State College (Go Grizzlies!). You guys were right about finding work. It is hard, but the good news is that I just got a call this evening for an interview at the local Mickey D's. Okay, so it may not be the most awesome place to work, but it'll get me by, and that's what matters. I'll make the most of it if hired!

So I took the low road into Colorado across from Garden City, KS into Lamar. The Super 8 in Lamar treated me good. Going from La Junta to Walsenburg was like everything you would picture a western road to be-- little vegetation on flat, seemingly desolate, dry land with absolutely nothing in the way of stores, gas stations, or restaurants in between. It was kinda' cool.

When I started catching a glimpse of those majestic Sangre de Christos--the eastern Rocky Mountain chain that surrounds my new home in the San Luis Valley--my eyes lit up like a kid at Christmas! I'd seen the Rockies from the air but not from the ground. As I made my way through La Veta Pass toward Alamosa off to the left were the first defined mountains that I saw which I later discovered to be called The Spanish Peaks.

I had my Colorado map out which only mapped out the major peaks in the state. So as I was approaching Fort Garland and Blanca, my eyes were anxiously awaiting what I believe to be the creme-de-la-creme of mountain peaks this far south in Colorado--Blanca Peak (the state's 4th tallest mountain peak). When I saw it, it was like "HOLY JEEZ!" The mountain touched the clouds. It was the most majestic piece of landscape I'd ever seen.

So here I am living 7,544 feet up, and the air is actually cleaner and easier to breathe up here than in the deep south. I'm getting to do everything I expected to do when I chose to come to Adams State College. I went to Tres Piedras, New Mexico to rock climb my first weekend here with the school's Outdoors program. Two weekends ago my roommates and our neighbors visited Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. This past weekend we strolled up to South Fork to Beaver Creek to do some fishin'! Even the old train engine located in Cole Park in Alamosa was a pretty sight on my first day.

Everything's so close knit here so a decent bike ride would get me to anywhere I wanted to be at the drop of a bucket which is good for someone who can't afford the gas prices right now. I like the historic railroads that still come through the town, and the Rio Grande. I'm going to ride that train whenever I get some extra money. I've never rode a train before.

My professors at ASC are cool too. I'm doing pretty good academically which is very important to my basis for coming out here. You just don't travel across the country to flop on your mission in life. I get to work in the Department of Human Peformance and Physical Education as a work study at Adams. I'm also starting to work as a peer tutor to make some extra money. Oh yeah, and our athletic director recruited me to fire the T-Shirt cannon at tomorrow's home-opening football game against Chadron State.

I like the fact that it doesn't rain as much as it does back in Tennessee. I get plenty of sun, and I'm lovin' this tan I'm getting. I feel healthier. I feel happier. Life is good in the Valley! I'm glad I made this move!

[SheridanL]

How sweet it is !!!
Very nice to hear your first views of Colorado!
I'm glad you are sooo happy in your new home!!
Sounds like you are getting out there and, really doing fantastic!!
Way to go!!!

[mrkool]

Good for you! You followed your dreams, and I hope the rest of your life continues to be this good.

[j96g]

I am glad to hear all you did, I hope my move from my Valley into Colorado in 2010 will just as i dreamed, enjoy your cool downs and snowfall this winter. Glad to hear "Valley" is not such a bad word.

[Suite B]

Three or four years ago, my wife and I purchased 5 acres in the Sangre de Cristo Ranches area (Siverd Road), perhaps three miles east of Ft. Garland, and abut 25 miles from Alamosa. The lot is on a ridge with plowed roads, about 1/3 mile from power, and 1/2 mile from a fiber trunk. We would need to put in a well and septic system and hook up to electric and phone, but that shouldn't be a big deal. The view is beautiful, with Mt. Blanca in one direction, and the Spanish Peaks in the back, and a lake within about a mile or so. Vegetation is mostly scrub oak and a few pine trees, with little ground cover. The two of us have visited the area twice, one in November and once in Dec/Jan, and I came back a third time in June this year, so I think we know the town and area reasonably well, even in moderately cold weather. The essential stores are there, and I like the coffee shop. For anything out of the ordinary, we can drive to Taos or Pueblo, or even Colorado Springs or Sante Fe, and make a day trip out of it. I grew up in Cheyenne and went through the blizzard of 1949, and we have lived in Boston and Provo, UT. I've been elk hunting and sleeping out in 0 degree weather at 9000 ft, so I'm used to cold weather and driving in snow, even though I don't do that much of that here is San Jose!. We have a Toyota FJ Cruiser with big gnarly tires and a winch, and with chains I'm not afraid of the little snow they get in the mountains. In fact, we saw a lot less snow there than in Sante Fe, Albuquerque, and the Grand Canyon on the way back. (Mind you, if it gets down to -50, I'm not going outside!) I stand to inherit a fair amount of money from my 96 yr. old mother, and am increasingly thinking about semi-retiring there in the relatively near future. Although the current economic situation in general seems quite bleak, assuming I have the money, it seems like this might be an ideal time to build a house. And I could do some consulting, assuming I have adequate communications (fiber or satellite). I should be able to work at least half-time, and with high-tech companies in Denver, Colorado Springs, Sante Fe, and Albuquerque that I could visit, not to mention companies and agencies on the east and west cost that I could fly to if necessary, I ought to be able to make out OK. Our plan was always to live in or around Alamosa for most of a year before starting to build, just to be sure we could tolerate the weather and the move from our relatively big-city (San Jose) environment. Availability of medical facilities is a potential issue, as I am 69 and my wife is 63 and has limited mobility was a result of a stroke many years ago, but as a former EMT, I know that if you need urgent medical attention and can't get it within about 3-5 minutes, you are a gonner in any case, so it doesn't really matter. For anything less than a urgent medical problem, Alamosa will do in a pinch, and otherwise there is Denver and Albuquerque, or Pueblo or Colorado Springs for routine problems. So my question is whether the economic downturn might actually prove to be a beneficial to me, if construction people are hungry for work. According to the Alamosa Building Inspectors, the cost of the most expensive construction (1A, whatever that is) is running $109 per sq/ft, and I suspect that is dropping sharply these days. I hope to build something around 4000 sq/ft, and in San Jose that would be completely out of the question -- probably $1 M or so, plus the cost of land, as if five areas was available anywhere. Any comments or advice from anyone in the area? P.S. I don't know why this site deletes all paragraph indications from Firefox -- my apologies!

[lalahartma]

Hahaah - wait til winter!

[sunsprit]

Good that you have the background of living in Cheyenne ... with the wind and the blown snow drifts.

You'll put that experience to good use at your new place. The open area there is a funnel for the upslope conditions to the area by Alamosa, and the wind can really get blasting there in the winter storms.

We've got friends who bought 40 acres down your way a few years ago and started construction. Their 35' 5th wheel trailer, being used as a temporary home while they work on their new stick built house was buried in drifts two winters ago, and the drive in from the "plowed road" with their F-350 4x4 was impassable to access the trailer. They didn't get to see it again until late spring when the snow finally melted down enough. Of course, the trailer was a mouse infested place as the critters moved in to the available shelter through every little opening of the place. Took them weeks to clean it out and make it livable again.

Having figured that the one winter was just a freak event, they worked on improving the driveway and relocated their building site due to not having water available at the first site ... three dry holes were drilled. They finally got a producing well at another site, so they built a new driveway in, cleared trees, and made a parking pad for their trailer. The plan was to retrieve the trailer in the early winter before they had weather problems and head south for the winter to a warmer climate. They had the same problem as the winter before; they came home to Denver and went back south after a moderate early winter storm to check on things. The driveway in was impassable without using a large bulldozer, and the trailer was half-buried in the drifts surrounding it. A neighbor there has a 'dozer, but even if the driveway was cleared enough to get the truck in, the trailer was stuck in the site; no way was it going to be towed out until the snow melted. We flew down a month later to check it out and you couldn't even see the trailer, it was totally buried in the snow. Clearing the trees just made it a convenient snow fence for the wind to pile up the snow on the driveway area. I don't believe they'll ever be able to make this place a year around residence and will have to head south for the winter in their trailer each year.