This place was so amazing and I'd only heard of it a month ago when I was talking to a local about trails. And only a half hour drive from Cortez.
T-shirt weather in February!
The trail allows hiking, dogs, mountain bikes and unfortunately drilling. Site of the McElmo Dome which holds asstons of CO2 which apparently is a valuable commodity to the oil and gas industry. Who knew? Supposedly Kinder Morgan, the company doing the drilling, has scaled back a significant amount of their operations due to the tanking of the oil and gas industry at the moment. And no fracking has occured in all of Montezuma County between 2013-2015 and only one well in 2012. But that could all change. I'm anxious to see how this turns out and of course it will impact whether we move to the area or not. Anyway, we couldn't see or hear any impacts from the drilling, if any was even going on.
The trail was beautiful. My only regret is that we only went a mile or two up, had to leave Lola in the car because it was too steep for her and didn't want to leave her for too long.
The red and white rock formations reminded me of Sedona.
Maybe a cave dwelling?
So much awesomeness. Can't wait to go back when I can explore a bit further. Tough traveling with the dogs though, especially when Lola can go very far. But the area is huge and if we move here there will be plenty to explore.
The weekend before last Jonny and I took an unplanned last minute trip down to the Southwest part of the state to check out Dolores, Cortez and Mancos. I'd been down a month ago but this was his first time and my first chance to see the area in greater detail. When I went down with my friend last month we only spent a half day in the area because our trip got cut short by an incoming snowstorm. This time we had 2 full days.
We had the dogs with us which limited our choices of places to stay but I found a cool little 'Casita' in Mancos on VRBO for a reasonable price. It turned out to be awesome, everything was brand new, we were only the third group of people to stay there. We had a beautiful view of Mesa Verde National Park from our deck.
Was so awesome waking up to that every morning. The Casita was on 10 acres so it was very peaceful and private. There was a main house and a little bit of issue having to navigate the owners' dogs at first but it worked out fine in the end. We even had a friendly cat come visit us at night. I miss having a cat but it's too hard to keep the dogs from snacking out of a litter box and that grosses me out to no end. And OMG the stars at night!!! So spectacular.
Hanging out in the Casita
Mancos, Dolores and Cortez are about 15-20 minutes from each other and form a triangle of sorts around a rural piece of land, some of it flat, some of it hilly. I had my eye on a 35 acre piece of land with a 'cabin' and the 2 parcels of 35 acres on either side for sale as a whole if you want. Imagine having 100 acres all to yourself! And for significantly cheaper than I can sell my Boulder shack. But the drive to get there had a short but steep hill on a dirt road and some twisty bits. Just a 10-15 minute drive from the main highway and mostly not too bad but still not something we want to have to do on a daily basis, especially in winter. Plus the ugly power lines at the boundary of the property. Lots of other possibilities in the area though. And while driving around the dirt roads I spotted this:
And there was a sign up at the fairgrounds saying there was an agility trial that weekend put on by Vision Agility. Some internet searching reveals that this is a commercial operation but unfortunately for me it's NADAC style/distance handling. Not my cup of tea. But nice to know there are fellow agility enthusiasts in them thar hills.
We checked out some houses that were for sale to get an idea of what we could afford and there were plenty of options, the biggest issue being the size of the places. So huge. Like this:
And 7 acres of land with water rights. Plus super nice on the inside. But sheesh, so big, 2400 square feet. The thought of heating such a monstrosity and taking care of it is overwhelming, our current house is about 1100 square feet. But so tempting with views like this:
And only 10 minutes from the grocery store, 20 minutes from trails at Boggy Draw, 6 minutes to Phil's World which is an amazing mountain bike mecca of awesomeness. All easy driving. Plus a pond on the property for dog swimming and a reservoir just down the road.
Boggy Draw
I know, what am I still doing here in Boulder? The woman I traveled with last month went back to Durango with her husband 2 weeks ago and came home with a house. Jonny and I joked that we had to resist the temptation to do the same. But we need to work out the financials of how we'll survive there first and it seems real estate prices are continuing to rise here in Boulder and fall over there so it makes sense to wait things out a bit.
And there are concerns - oil and drilling/fracking in the area and water rights are my main concerns. I talked to a friend who lives near Durango and she stressed the importance of hiring a real estate lawyer who's also an expert in water and mineral rights. There's a downturn in oil at the moment (which is probably why real estate prices are falling over there) and a contraction in oil operations for now but who knows what the future holds and the BLM is trying to open up almost all our public land to drilling/fracking and this includes areas next to Mesa Verde National Park and Phil's World. So there are concerns and I want to see how these issues play out in the next year.
On the other hand, Weld County which is next to Boulder County has by far the most amount of fracking and drilling in the whole state and Boulder has its own brown cloud so whatever is going on over there is probably not nearly as bad as here.
I've got a bunch more photos from Mesa Verde and Canyon of the Ancients but I'll do another post for those.
Been ages since I've written about an agility trial. This one was super fun - great courses (mostly), great weather, great people. Mostly I'm happy to even be able to go because March is our snowiest month and this trial often gets snowed out for me because while it's only just over an hour's drive, I have to drive through all of Boulder, all of Denver and then the green belt to Castle Rock. Didn't enter Team this year because the Denver rush hour traffic both ways on Friday was atrocious. I love Team but not that much. Though I heard this year was not so bad.
We started off Saturday with Masters Jumpers and ended Sunday with Biathlon Jumpers (ie Fancy Jumpers). I put them back to back on video with Sunday's run first and it's funny to see the difference between first run of the trial and last run. He was Crazypants for the first run, knocked 2 bars and had me worried that he's getting too old but looking at the video I think he was simply overexcited. I was early in the run order and didn't get enough warm-up plus someone from way down in the running order in Championship (we were in Performance) was at the warm-up jump for reasons I can't possibly fathom. In hindsight I should have booted her out but at the time I couldn't be bothered.
Masters Jumpers
Biathlon Jumpers
Biathlon and Masters Jumpers
Was pleased with both runs, Biathlon Jumpers being my favorite of the whole trial. So many people got taken out by the off course tunnel entrance at #6 and that's a particularly difficult challenge for Strummer but I got his attention early and he listened beautifully. To be fair, the jump was a double for Championship and only a single for Performance so he wasn't in as much extension but still, my timing was good and I made it up the opening line no problem. Had a weave pole bobble but I've given up stressing about his weave poles. I support him best as I can and he does what he does and I'm o.k. with it. But I was so pleased with how well we both did on such a technical course, felt so smooth and connected. Especially since it was last class of the day and we were both mentally tired.
Steeplechase Round 1
Steeplechase Round 2
Steeplechase Rounds 1 and 2
Somehow I managed to fall during the opening sequence of Round 1. Not sure what happened, my feet got tangled up or something. Ended up with some road rash and impressive bruises and swelling on my shin and a cut on my hand but not hurt really. And I got up and finished the course and still qualified for Finals though far down in the rankings due to lost time. We redeemed ourselves with a second place finish in Finals. More lost time due to popping out of weave poles but otherwise a nice fast run. I bought some smoked marrow bones with our winnings so Lola will get a treat as well. Plus I a bag of turkey hearts in the workers' raffle and bought a bag of duck feet. Yes my life has taken a strange turn.
Grand Prix
Master Standard (Saturday)
Grand Prix and Masters Standard (first video is Grand Prix, not Standard)
Nice runs with little faults here and there. Of course he finally gets his dogwalk and misses other things. The missed A-frame in Grand Prix was a handling error, I was too far behind and this impacted the weaves as well. But otherwise a nice run, fun course.
Masters was another nice run but again with the weave poles and this left me a bit out of position for jump #17 where I ended up flat footed after a front cross after the weaves and ended up with (I think) a refusal at Jump #18. Should have kept him on my left but didn't plan on being behind. Got his dogwalk again, yay for that. Thankfully we had no problem with the chute. Much ugliness of photos of this on my Facebook this morning from other teams.
I didn't get video of Masters Challenge Standard but this was also a course of much chute ugliness, partly due to course design. A front cross between Jumps #5 and #6 was challenging unless you could leave your dog on the teeter and many dogs came off the teeter sideways. Then there was the risk of the A-frame/tunnel off course. And if you didn't time it right the dog would go into the chute at too much of an angle leading to them getting tangled which quite a few dog did. The trouble with a rear cross is that you also risked a bad angle or the same A-frame/tunnel off course if you shaped the line too much. Plus calling the dog while in the chute also led to tangling. I chose a rear and didn't bother to call his name, just let him come out turning the wrong way and let him turn on the flat before Jump #7. Wasn't pretty but it was much better than risking a tangle in the chute. However I had to go too close to #7 to manage his confusion and while I was able to pull off a front cross between #7 and #8 I was a bit behind and had to call him off #10 a little too hard/early and ended up with the off course tunnel entrance at #9 since I was too far behind. It was close though, wish I had video of it. Lots of people ended up with faults/off courses in this area. I also ended up with a wrong course at #18, again with the weave poles. Was surprised to see such a course design from this judge, I normally love her courses and I don't think I've ever seen anything like this before. Watching from the stands I almost decided to pull from this class but decided to just let him go straight in the chute and turn him on the flat and accepting whatever happened after that. Otherwise a very fun course. We got through #13-#17 and I was pleased for that.
Overall I had a great time, was fun to chat with people I haven't seen in a while and watch the other runs. Lots of great handling out there and some awesome performances from some of the baby dogs. Training has come so far these days, it was amazing seeing some of those baby dogs knocking it out of the park.
Finally made it out to Joder Ranch to check out the new open space. There's only a 2 mile stretch of road/trail open at the moment but I can see trails heading off here and there and they look good from what I can see of them. Which ones Boulder will open up to bikes, if any, remains to be seen. The interim trail is open to bikes though and I've got a good loop planned, mix of road and trails, for when my neck and knee finally get better. I'd say they're at about 80% healed at the moment but I've been doing hardly anything in order to let them rest and heal. Kind of hard to sit still this past week with temps. in the 60's and 70's and trails finally drying up and opening again. Hopefully the weather will hold out and we can get in another trip to Cortez/Dolores before we get slammed with the spring snow storms.
The trail is nice because it's only a 7 minute drive from my house but it's not much until they open up the other trails and who knows when that will be. Boulder moves at a glacial pace when it comes to Open Space. But I can't complain about more Open Space. Anything to spread out the hordes of Too Many People.
And in that vein I saw an alarming article in the local paper about a proposed development about a mile or so from my house. In short a couple bought 500 acres of land on the cheap because at present it can't be annexed to the city of Boulder and is restricted to very limited development. Then hired a lawyer to pull some shenanigans to get the land annexed. Even worse they're trying to pass off this development scam as providing 'affordable' housing that Boulder desperately needs. Which is like those people who try to pass off their crazy lunging untrained dogs in Target as 'Service Dogs'. If they manage to pull this scam off it'll create a huge bottleneck at the north entrance to town. Don't think there's much we the public can do about it, once the sleezy lawyers get involved it's out of our hands. I'm guessing it'll be years before they're able to break ground but it seems inevitable that with the huge amounts of money to be made on development that every last little square will get paved over, even if it's land that was never meant to be developed. Where there's a will and some money there's a lawyer willing and able to help the rich get richer.
I was at an agility trial this past weekend and got to talking with an agility friend about Anatolian Shepherds. She's interested in them because she's recently adopted one (or a mix of one?) and I'm interested in livestock guarding dogs in general because maybe one day I'll have goats and chickens and who knows what all else and I'll need somebody to guard them. Anyway she was hiking and ran into a man who had a pair of what looked like Anatolian Shepherds but were built with much more athleticism, not nearly as stocky. She asked him about the dogs and sure enough they were Anatolian Shepherds but not from American lines. 'Pffffbt, Amercians, they breed for stupid,' he explained. And I had to laugh because we do. At least when it comes to AKC lines. There are some working breeds and lines of working breeds that have not been infected by the AKC and rosette-itis, but they're hard to find and not what the general public gravitates towards. Because most people don't need a true working dog that can do this:
Instead they are transfixed by this:
Which makes the proponents of the working border collie throw up in their mouth a little. O.k., a lot. Actually probably down the hall in the bathroom heaving up breakfast, lunch, dinner and yesterday's dinner. And lunch and breakfast. I don't need a working border collie and probably won't ever have enough livestock that I will but still I get it, I get their anger and their nausea and why they put up a huge fight against the AKC registering border collies. Donald McCaig has a book called 'The Dog Wars: How the Border Collie Battled the American Kennel Club'. This is perhaps the first book I've been unable to get from the Boulder Library and their inter-library system. I put in a materials request for it, we'll see if they buy it or can get it from an out of system library. I've put off reading it for years mostly because I'm sure it'll only aggravate me but the conversation with my friend re-ignited my interest.
And even though I'll likely never need a true working border collie I also don't want this:
I mean seriously, who does this? On purpose? For a stupid rosette and some money and an ego boost. If only the breeders had to come back in their next lives as the dogs they bred and had to live in their deformed, diseased bodies. But in the real world what's someone like me supposed to do? I wonder about this as I contemplate my next dog. Is there anyone out there breeding for health, longevity, good temperament, and a healthy athletic build? I don't even care about breed, I just want a nice, confident, healthy, athletic DOG. And even if someone wanted to breed such a dog, have too many dogs, purebred or mixes of purebreds, been compromised by all the 'Breeding for Stupid'? And if the answer is 'yes', how do we fix it or can we even fix it? Almost certainly my next dog will come from rescue but even if I wanted to go with a breeder I wouldn't know where to turn. I know a couple of people looking for pet dogs and they're in the same boat. All I can tell them is to avoid the lines with AKC conformation champions in them and maybe check out the shelter.
I suppose it's the bane of humanity being such a visual species, looks are so important to us. But it's unfair to betray a whole species for our fancy. I wish we could get over it and stop all the Breeding for Stupid.
I think I've had more snow adventures in the past week and half than I have in the past 3 years. I suppose it's due more to happenstance than anything, ie I've had various friends up for various adventures in the snow.
First was a little trip up to Eldora (about 40 minutes drive up into the high country) for some snow shoeing at Jenny Creek Trail. I ended up hiking in Yax Trax because the trail was compacted enough that snowshoes were overkill. Though I did end up post holing up to my knee when I wasn't paying attention and stepped into the uncompacted powder at the side of the trail.
A few days later was a trip to Devils Thumb which is a nordic ski area about 2 hours away, just past Winter Park. I ended up skiing for 2 1/4 hours at around 8700' elevation. This amounted to a measly 6.1 miles and I could barely move afterwards. Have only skied once so far this winter on a nearly flat course in North Boulder Park for 45 minutes. But we'd driven all that way and were having such fun, what's a few days of being sore? It was a beautiful day, low 20's but sunny and didn't feel cold at all. Snow was a bit icy for me in places but mostly not a problem.
Devil's Thumb Ski Area
The drive over Berthoud Pass
A spectacular day overall, seized up hamstrings notwithstanding.
Then a couple days later I left for a whirlwind tour of Durango/Cortez/Dolores. It's an area that I'm interested in possibly moving to so we spent the time mostly driving through potential neighborhoods though we did make time for a short 1 hour fat biking adventure. It was only a 3 day trip cut short by an approaching snowstorm (10"-20" predicted for Cortez area) though 3 days of driving is plenty for me (7 1/2 hours of driving to get to Cortez).
We spent the first night in Durango where they were having some 80's themed winter festival. I so wish I hadn't been so tired because I would have loved to attend the 80's Drag Strip competition. We saw some of the contestants in the street while looking for a place for dinner but I didn't know what it was about until the next day. Plus being so tired, I was in my jammies before the competition even started.
Downtown Durango
Last summer Jonny and I made a trip to Pagosa Springs and Durango and our impression of Durango was that it was crowded, built-up and expensive and my impression this time around wasn't much different. Though to be fair the festival may have lured more people than normal to town but it seemed most folks were there to ski Purgatory, a resort about 30 mins. or so from Durango. Still it was interesting to check out some different areas and confirm that this probably won't be our final destination.
Next it was on to Dolores, a place I've never been. The main attraction here is a trail system called Boggy Draw as well as a huge reservoir that allows for open water swimming in summer. We rented fat bikes in Cortez and checked out the groomed fat bike trails in Boggy Draw.
So Much Fun
There were a couple deer legs along the trail but I didn't see any kitties.
I've got some Go Pro video footage but that'll have to wait for another day. Still need to process it. I'm also going to put together a video of the area from my dashboard camera. Sometime. Eventually.
Dolores is a small, unassuming little town. The Boggy Draw trails are at the top of the cliffs, about 3 miles drive from town.
It's about 10 minutes or so from Cortez which is larger and has pretty much everything we need including public indoor and outdoor swimming pools, a groovy bike store and a farmer's market in the summer. Horses, goats, chickens, donkeys, is it too late to start a hobby farm in your 50's? And of course a dog agility field of my very own.
There's a lot of affordable housing between Dolores and Cortez. We could easily afford 5-10 acres if not more.
The best part though is the access to so many awesome areas within an hour or two including Lizard Head Wilderness area and Telluride and a bunch of places in Utah and even Durango is just 50-60 minutes away. I ran into a guy in the parking lot who was also finishing up his fat bike ride and it turned out he was a member of the cycling group that grooms the trail as well as a lifelong resident of Dolores. He told me about so many biking and skiing trails. SO many. We could easily spend the rest of our lives exploring. And the San Juans! They are spectacular. If I had to choose a favorite Colorado mountain range it would be the San Juans.
The view from the outskirts of Cortez. Mesa Verde National Park is behind those cliffs.
On our drive home we stopped in Mancos, a little artist-ey sort of town about 10 minutes from Cortez. Probably too small for us and too far from trails but a neat little place to visit and not totally off our list yet. And they had some kind of organic food grocery store that looked promising.
Outside the coffee shop in Mancos
Sunrise in Mancos
Overall a lot of good info. gleaned from a short little trip. The guy from Dolores put my mind at ease about a lot of questions I had about water, fracking, trails, etc. Of course we'll need a few more trips out there but it was good to see these places in winter. Will be interesting to see them again in summer but so far I'm feeling encouraged.
Then yesterday was yet another skiing adventure. We had 15"-16" of snow in North Boulder and after an asston of shoveling I treated myself to 1 1/2 hours at North Boulder Park. Where there were Too Many People and I was longing for the serenity of Boggy Draw.
But again, not complaining. Was happy to be able to ski less than 10 minutes from my house. All the shoveling and skiing jacked up my neck though. Feels better today but had to skip swimming at masters. Hopefully will be better for Friday's masters workout. Plus it would be nice if I could turn my head to the left.
Matty came from far away
From New Orleans into the East Bay
He said this is a Mecca
I said this ain't no Mecca man, this place is fucked
-Rancid ("Journey to the End of the East Bay")
And we'll sink with California When it falls into the sea
-Youth Brigade ("Sink With California")
Jonny and I got out of the car in downtown Boulder a couple of summers ago and I immediately thought, 'Ugh but this place is barftastic' (we seldom venture downtown) only to have a couple turn the corner and the woman blurt out, 'Evan, this town makes me wanna puke!! I have to get out of here, NOW!!!'. After they passed out of earshot Jonny and I burst out laughing. Because DUH! If you want to know why, we turned the corner and encountered a store that sells antique European chandeliers. I wish I was joking.
Lest you think these chandeliers are scooped up by the mainly tourist crowd that frequents downtown, I have a neighbor with not one but two gigantic pretentious chandeliers. And the gigantic pretentious house to go along with them. Now I don't begrudge the business for existing. But I can't believe that I live in a town that is so wealthy and snooty that it can support such a business. Especially downtown where rents are astronomical and most businesses cater to tourists walking around looking for knick knacks that can be carried home on the plane.
I could easily spend a month of posts making fun of Boulder, posting pictures of the gigantic 3,000 square foot McMansions that have sprouted up on my street and neighborhood in general. SO many examples of the day to day arrogance of the wealthy people here. But that would depress me and probably you already know that Boulder is rich and snooty and pretentious.
This is nothing new. When I moved here in 1990, a whopping 25 years ago, yikes!-I ran the Bolder Boulder which is a huge 10 K race on Memorial Day and loads of people line the race course including bands. I remember turning a corner and a punk band was blaring away, shouting the eloquent lyrics of 'Boulder Sucks! Boulder Sucks! Boulder Sucks!' over and over and you get the picture. Once again I burst out laughing because even though I'd only lived there a year or two I had to agree. When I made the decision to move here to go to grad school with the intention of staying, a good friend of mine suggested that maybe Fort Collins would be a better fit for me. And he was totally right. But the university there was appallingly bad, at least in structural engineering, and CU Boulder was in the top 20 or so in the country. It was a no brainer and a good decision. I had great professors and got a great education there. Whereas the CSU structural engineering program (the school in Ft. Collins) was on the verge of losing its accreditation several years after I graduated. Not sure if it ultimately lost it but school is expensive and I'm glad I went to the better school. Got a job within a week or so of getting my degree. Anyway, Jonny's job and our house were in the Boulder area so that's where we stayed after I graduated.
I know what you're thinking. Is she really complaining about living in Boulder? Srlsly??!! I totally get it. The very epitome of first world problems. I'm not complaining at all, I've loved living here, especially coming from Chicago. Relatively mild winters, trails a couple blocks out my front door.
Nothing like this in Chicago, especially not close enough to do as a 'before work hike'
Looking down on Wonderland Lake
So many other pictures I can and have posted of the trails right out my back door or within 20 minutes drive.
In town skiing not even 10 minutes away at North Boulder Park when there's enough snow which admittedly is only a couple few times a year but still.
One of the best masters swimming programs in the country with zillions of workouts every day and open water swimming at the Rez in the summer.
I live in a great location too, 6 minute walk to the best grocery store in Boulder, an Open Space trailhead 2 blocks away, library, coffee shops (not that I'm drinking coffee any more but still) a 6-10 minute walk, a playground 2 blocks away for body weight workouts, office 2 miles away (6 minutes by car, 10-12 by bike), 6 minute drive to the pool. I have no right to complain, especially coming from Chicago where I had, um, none of this. Also I hates driving. Hates it. I've managed to fashion a life here that doesn't require a lot of driving for day to day living. I can go a couple few days a week without getting in my car. But the driving to get to out of town/quieter trails, especially for mountain biking? It's starting to reach a fever pitch. Would so love to live somewhere with quiet trails out my back door. Because the trails out my back door are anything but quiet. Yes, I get it, First World Problem. Yes, I am thankful to have trails out my back door.
But Boulder has become a wee bit cozy in the past 25 years, especially so in the past 5-8 years. And around about then my neighborhood had a significant shift in demographics. Boulder has always been a wealthy place relative to the rest of the Front Range but my neighborhood had a reasonable population of regular middle class folks. People who got up in the morning and went to work and were not obsessed with Stuff and Huge Houses and ugh. But a good chunk of those folks sold up and moved out during the last housing bubble and now the neighborhood is, well, different. A lot of Money From Somewhere folk who do not get up early and go off to work. One neighbor has 4 cars and 2 drivers and the one next door, not to be outdone, has 5 cars for 2 drivers (and a camper and a huge flatbed trailer that he left parked in front of my house for over a year because rich people don't park their crap in front of their own houses). But I guess since 2 of the cars are Priuses they can carry on with their delusion of being Uber Green.
The neighborhood used to have a semi-rural feel to it, lots of big empty lots, sheep, horses, even a white donkey. But in the past couple few years construction has exploded and the lots are disappearing. A whole entire city block at the end of my street was developed this past year with houses renting for $4000 a month and selling for just under or just over $1 million. I prefer the big bull elk that hung out there and the deer to the big ugly 3000 square foot McMansions. But nobody asked me. My street and the couple few blocks around me have changed so much so quickly that I'm confused about where to turn into my street any more. I know, o.k., First World Problems.
But I'm paying what is to me a lot of money to live here. Thanks to skyrocketing real estate prices and rich people voting for every possible tax like, oh, taxes for more art downtown because you can never have too much ugly yuppie art, my property tax has doubled. Which is where California comes into all of this.
Part of the explosion here in Boulder is due to skyrocketing real estate in Silicon Valley. This lady here has a lot to say about that.
At 17:34 she talks about the folks fleeing California for Portland, Seattle, Austin, and oh yes, Boulder. 'Places where middle class folks can still afford homes.' Which makes me laugh and snort and roll my eyes because unless you consider a family middle class with a budget of $500,000 for a small starter home then they can't afford a home in Boulder. And I don't consider of budget of half a million to be middle class, sorry. I could never afford even a condo here if I was starting out today. In fact Jonny and I would qualify for Boulder's Affordable Homes program if we weren't already buying our home. And we would be spending about what we spent for our house to get a condo under that program. A condo on the regular market? No way. Even the towns surrounding Boulder are becoming out of reach for the middle class, if they aren't already. Never mind the ever increasing commute times and brown cloud.
And with Google putting in a major expansion and building a huge shiny new campus the prices will be going even higher. Plus the lady in the film says the Silcon Valley exodus isn't even half over. And Boulder and more importantly the trails will be getting even cozier and having the same problems as California. The city is talking about making more allowances for taller buildings and tighter housing density. This is not what we signed up for.
It's not just Boulder either. The towns surrounding Boulder have nearly doubled in size since we moved here 25 years ago and the sprawl in the Front Range area (Fort Collins/Boulder/Denver/Colorado Springs) is even worse. So much land turning to subdivisions, everywhere. Traffic on I-70, the main road into the mountains/ski areas, has gone from crowded to epic. We stopped going on it during the winter and summer Sundays maybe 10-15 years ago. Even the week days are becoming crowded. And driving through the ever increasing bottle neck of Golden to get to 285, the other road we take a lot to go mountain biking in Buffalo Creek? This has reached fever pitch as well. The week days are like the weekends used to be and the weekends? Forget it.
But worst of all are the trails. So many people. Too Many People. What's the point of access to all these trails if you can't enjoy them because Too Many People? Then there's the ever growing Brown Cloud which is only going to get worse as the Front Range explodes. It's not what we signed up for when we moved here lo the many years ago. I know, I know, First World Problems. I get it. But nonetheless it's hard not to mourn the degradation of your quality of life even if it is still pretty awesome compared to living on a garbage heap in Haiti.
So the thought has crossed our minds that we're not necessarily stuck here. There are places in Colorado that are way cheaper, have incredible trails and are not crawling with Too Many People. Why pay a ton of money to live in Boulder when we can live somewhere we'd rather be for less money? Let the rich folk have the place, crowded trails, traffic, brown cloud and all. There are complications to moving to a more rural place like how to make money but I become ever more convinced there are ways to work this out. We don't need a big house or lots of Stuff and can live frugally. There has to be a way, other people move to these places and find ways to thrive. So that's the goal for the year - trying to find a place to move to and figuring out what we'll do once we get there. This may take time, more than a year probably a few. And we figure we may as well wait for the Google bubble anyway, not sure when that is supposed to happen but I know they've broken ground on the new campus.
The past 2 years we've taken trips with the idea of looking at places to move to. Salida, Pagosa Springs, Durango so far. Even Ogden, Utah is a possibility but yikes the air quality there is something awful never mind the sprawl all the way to Salt Lake. Some friends of ours are having similar thoughts so I'm going to have a little Thelma and Louise type road trip with one of them to check out the southwest area of the state again in a few weeks if the weather cooperates. Pagosa, Durango, Mancos, Cortes, Delores and points in between. It's a long drive - 6-8 hours to hit all those places - and finding a window of clear roads/weather will be challenging. But we want to see these places in winter and hopefully again in spring. Though maybe we're overthinking it all. Just up and go. When I moved to Boulder I didn't have a job or apartment lined up and I'd only visited twice and somehow managed. Hard to have the same carefree attitude at 51 though. Maybe a few more trips can't hurt.
Edited to add:
BTW, I forgot to point out what a skeezebag the realtor in the movie is. At about 20 minutes he starts talking about buyers vs sellers of these million dollar shacks in Silicon Valley, portraying the sellers as schoolteachers/blue collar workers in a formerly middle class neighborhood and the buyers as 'brilliant people' with advanced degrees and an IQ 20-30 points higher than the sellers. Nice.
