Colorado: more than Columbine, and Kobe Bryant

27 November 2008

 I made the big move yesterday and no internet until Saturday so there will likely be a lot to read once I get back online.  I thought this would a great chance to tell the story of how I ended up moving to Colorado.  This is actually turning into a long story, with two parts.

 

Part 1
During the winter of 2005 I used to go snowboarding nearly every weekend with a buddy of mine Jim, he and I met kayaking earlier in the ear, and once winter came, we switched to riding.  One day Jim calls me and says “we are going to big sky mountain in March”.  He begins to explain everything to me, Big Sky Mountain is near Bozeman, Montana, and has an elevation of 14000 ft?   This is also the mountain a fellow kayaker works during the winter.  Jim was going to go with his new girlfriend, they booked the trip, and come to find out she stunk snowboarding.  He then diplomatically pulled the plug on her going on the trip.  Using other reasons, such as it was too early in the relationship to spend two weeks together etc.

 He then calls me saying the ticket is bought, the housing is set, everything is done, and I am going regardless.  I protest saying I have no money, and basically he tells me to shut up, and I am going no matter what… this works. 

 Jim has a dog, with bad arthritis in its legs, so the plan is he will drive to Detroit leave the dog at his folks, fly to Denver where we will meet.  He leaves, and a few days later I fly to Denver, we met up, and our flight to Bozeman is cancelled, we then begin toying with driving to Montana, how far can it be?  I whip out the crackberry, and turns out to be a 14 hour drive, which we decide is not a good idea since its snowing, and we are clueless. 

 We can wait a day to catch a new flight or plan “B” which consists of flying from Denver to Boise, to Salt Lake City; to Bozeman… we chose plan “b”.  As we are flying from city to city I was looking out the window, and you could see these roads just going into the mountains, no cars, and as a cyclist well, they were a dream. 

 The snowboarding trip continued rocky since my baggage managed to get lost somewhere, between all the different cities.  I had packed my board with Jim's so luckily I had my board and boots.  We arrive to the condo after an hours drive, and crash for the night after a very long day.  The next morning we go searching the shops on the mountain looking for our friend, we actually found him very easily, and he was a champ and hooked us up with a huge discount on clothes which came in very handy.

 There were a couple of highlights, 2^nd run of the second day Jim fractures his shoulder right in front of me while dropping into a 20’ half pipe.  This led to a great conversation.

 Dr:  “How did this happen?”

Jim: “I was in the terrain park when…”

Dr. Interrupts

Dr:  “How old are you?”

Jim: “35”

Dr:  “You have NO business being in a terrain park!”

 The other highlights was the following day while he was stuck in a sling reading books (I felt bad for him) I went to the tip-top of the mountain somewhere around 14000 feet.  This was surreal since with no trees (above the tree line) there are no real trails to follow, also up here they get a foot of snow a night, so as I head down my board keeps sinking until I am chest deep in snow, and can’t move.  Growing up in MA where 2” is considered a powder day, it took some new techniques to ride through snow, but it was wild blasting down the mountain knee deep in snow.  Which I am now accustomed to here in CO, but coming from the land of ice boarding it was an amazing experience.

 There remainder of the trip went without any issue, and I returned home with the seed of heading west sown.  It would not be for another 2 years that the seed would begin to sprout. 

 

Part 2

A few years later (summer of 06) I was dating a girl, we had been together for a few months, and both of us were looking for new jobs.  I was under employed working part-time for UPS (this leads into another blog I need to write “Summer of the tour”) and was looking for something fulltime, and meaningful, she was looking for a change from the company she had been working for 3 years.  One knight we are talking discussing where we sent resumes etc, she mentions she sent one to a company in Boulder.  I respond with “CO?” She says indeed, so if she gets the job we might have to talk.  We talk a bit since I anted to come west at some point, and she having family with a place in Eagle, CO has been out a number of times.  We decide we should fly out, and see if we want to move out. 

 October 206 we flew out for week, and fell in love with CO.  We spent most of our time in Boulder and Louisville (where we moved to) and could not wait to head out.  We found our apartment, and started looking for jobs out here. 

 A funny side story is one day while out here; we were going to meet up with an old high school friend of hers who lives in Colorado Springs.  Since Denver is about the mid point for us we figured we would meet at the Denver Botanical Gardens.  We are driving to the gardens, and are driving down Colfax (yes my new home) and she says “my god, what a disgusting hole”   Throughout the day she mentions how much she dislikes Denver and how “ghetto” it is… I live 5 blocks from the botanical gardens, ha. 

 We decide February we will move, after the Xmas, and new years excitement, with a little downtime to tie up loose ends.  I then became the eBay/craigslist master and sold everything I could.  This was for a couple of reasons, first: money, but secondly I looked around and started thinking “do I really ant to drag this 2000 miles across the country?”  This was the begging of my simplifying my life, though I did not really know it. 

 We drove out here, Feb 10^th, and 35 hours, we were unpacking in our new apartment.  I drove all but 3 of those hours, and drank EVERY energy drink known to man!  Every 1.5 hours we would stop, top off the fuel, empty out the bladder, grab 3 more drinks, and go for another couple of hours.  All of my belonging fit in 5 - 16” x16” boxes a duffle bad, a bike case, and two other bikes strapped to the roof. 

 We go into Louisville that morning, and the first thing I did was use the toilet, one of the things I did NOT pack, was a plunger.  I ran to Target, bought one, and found the girl’s parents in the apartment (her mother and step father came up to help us unpack from Colorado Springs). I walk in with a new plunger in hand and they make a joke about how important it is to pack a plunger.  Her step father then says “Where is the bathroom I need to go”. The girl and I look at each other, laugh and then mention the plunger was new, the bathroom would be out of commission for a few minutes.