Colorado Living

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It's hard to believe it's been 8 months since we started our adventure here in Colorado. Time has just flown by but yet there is so much more we want to explore here in Colorado. The first several months we were flying back and forth to Minnesota about every month. After a few months of having the kids living in the house and seeing how they maintained it (or lack thereof), we decided it was time to prepare to say good-bye to the place we raised our children and called home for the past 20 years. It was bittersweet for sure but we knew it was what we needed to do because it was too hard to maintain a full sized house when we were living about 800 miles away. So the purging began! It was stressful, exhausting and emotional to part with some of our things but on the other hand it was a feeling of relief. The timing worked out perfectly as our renter in our townhome for the past 6 years was starting to look at moving and purchasing a home of her own. She was moved out in January. February was our big move. We moved Erika and ourselves into the townhome and Lukas into his own apartment in Chaska. It was 10 days of busting our butts moving, purging, painting, and cleaning. Two full dumpsters we filled from purging. Had new carpet, paint and kitchen floor put in. Needless to say we were longing to be back in Colorado where we could relax. We returned in March when we did the final fixings to the house and settled into the townhome and put the house on the market on March 23. The day after we had 4 offers on it and we took the cash deal and closed on April 16th remotely from Colorado. It was a bittersweet good-bye to all the memories that were made in that home and to the neighbors who became our friends over the years but we were looking forward to the more simple life with no maintenance to do and less clutter. We even managed to fit everything we kept into the townhome.

As I'm writing this today, May 24, we have not been back to Minnesota since we sold the house. This would be the longest stretch we've been in Colorado. The winters in Colorado are much easier to tolerate and Spring came much earlier along with warm temps. Although we did get a few days of snow here and there, it was melted within a day (best part of Colorado). Our bodies are still adjusting to the elevation and the dryer climate but we feel it's improving. We both seem to be dealing with some respiratory issues now and then where we have congestion/cough or feel like we are getting a cold. Jeff had a lingering cough that lasted almost 2 weeks! I've been trying to get more steps logged on my Fitbit. I've noticed it's more of a struggle when you are living in a small apartment. So I take lots a walks/hikes around the complex and in the foothills.

We took a few ventures out to explore more of Colorado. For our adventure in February, we pulled out our snowshoes and snowshoed to St. Mary's Glacier. This was only a 1.3 mi trail but with snowshoes and deep snow and some elevation, it proved to be a great workout for us and a bit of a challenge. It's still out for debate whether we actually made it to the glacier or not. I say we were on it but Jeff thinks we needed to get to the top and over to see it. We hope to return there sometime maybe in the summer to find out. St. Mary's Glacier hike did have some pretty awesome views and is located near Idaho Springs. In March, we took a drive up to Boulder, CO. Boulder is the home of a very large campus for the students of CU (University of Colorado). We drove through town to arrive at our hiking destination at Sugarloaf Mountain. This was just over a mile long trail but again with the elevation that we are not accustomed to it was a bit of a challenge but not too bad. When we arrived at the mountain we ate our lunch there while taking in the marvelous view of the mountains in the horizon. April's adventure was our first visit to a state park of Colorado which was Roxborough State Park. A beautiful park with lots of red rock formations. We walked a couple of the trails (which were easy gravel trails except to the lookout points) and had our lunch at the park. Of course I took tons of pictures too. This park is in Littleton, CO not far from Red Rocks Amphitheater and one of the most beautiful golf courses I have ever seen - Arrowhead. My Dad took me there for one of my first visits to Colorado and it just amazed me and still does.

So far this May we have taken two adventures. One trip was going to Nederland but we never made it to Nederland. We were going to visit Forsythe Canyon to see a waterfall but the direction we came in from did not give us access to get to the canyon. Since we would have had to go all the way back to Boulder and take a different route we decided to just go visit the Gross Dam and Reservoir. We were able to drive to the dam and had a little picnic there where there were several picnic tables. We never hiked the area but just drove through the mountains and pulled off to walk out to the lookout points to view the dam/reservoir. The dam was built in 1954 and is currently in the planning stages for an expansion to start in 2019. Even though we didn't get to see the waterfall or hike, it was still a good day spent driving in the mountains and viewing the dam. Our latest adventure hike took us to Franktown near Castlerock. Another state park - Castlewood Canyon State Park. This was the longest hike we had done so far in Colorado and it was a neat hike because it covered all sorts of terrain. We hiked first down by the creek where we saw a waterfall and lots of rocks and big boulders, we then came to another dam, Castlewood Dam, which was just the remains of the dam. We had to climb up through the boulders to get to the top of the dam and then descended down to the creek again to cross the bridge to the other side which lead us up to the Rimrock trail at the top of the canyon which was all flat rocks and trees (and a few snakes). This was one of the first hiking trips I had taken my new camera on so there were a few frustrating moments when I was fidgeting with my camera and Jeff was starting to lose his patience. We gave up on the selfies with the camera and took them with our phones. As we finally neared the crossing to the other side of the creek we were starting to get tired but it was a great hike at 4.29 mi and 12,800 steps and 1,000 calories burned!

So far we are loving our Colorado living. You just can't beat the weather here in Colorado. Average temps are in the 70's and it's sunny almost every day! We have had some days of rain but the rain is always welcome to bring the moisture since it is such a dry state. So we will deal with a few days of clouds. It's only mid May and we have already hit the pool to get a little color. The downfall to living here is only that we miss our friends and family. Especially around the holidays like birthdays and Mother's Day. We were able to get home for Easter though and hope to have the kids come visit again this summer. We also hope to have more friends or family come visit so we can share the experiences we have had in this great state. At times it does get a little lonely as we are still struggling to meet people here but we did get some good news today! Our Winnie is coming to Colorado!! A storage space just opened that we were on a waiting list for so now we have a place to store the RV here. The facility is outdoors but it has a dump station, RV wash, vacum and full-time security. A very nice facility and we are excited to take some adventures in our Winnie to explore more of colorful Colorado!

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Photos

perfect view for snow shoeing

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We were where those 2 dots are.

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having lunch and checking e-mails, still working while out having some fun and exercise

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beautiful views while having a picnic lunch