Boulder and Fort Collins

[cjsmith]

This weekend Rob and I checked out Boulder and Fort Collins.

General impressions:
- Boulder: not nearly as overwhelmingly white as Boise
- Fort Collins: overwhelmingly white, boisterous college town
- spectacular thunderstorm every afternoon
- overwhelmingly Christian (you can't buy wine or buy a car on Sundays; WTF?)
- pretty if you're close to the mountains, but not much is
- very spread out: if you live in one town you don't visit the other often
- LONG drive to nearest big airport, and extra-annoying security there
- fun walkable downtown (if ya have feet)
- close to skiing and lots of hiking (good if ya have feet)
- very near Rocky Mountain National Park
- good potential for finding a house we like
- friendly aviation community with not much earning potential
- friendly people (though Boise was even more so)
- full complement of the same big box stores you can find in larger cities in America
- significant variety of restaurants
- no Challenge square dancing potential ever

We'd rather live near Boulder than near Fort Collins, just from the atmosphere of the places and Boulder's proximity to the mountains. Boulder is, of course, a bit pricier. As our real estate agent put it, the place used to be full of hippies, and now it's a few aging hippies and a bunch of trust fund babies.

We had the (mis?)fortune of visiting Fort Collins on the weekend before classes started. The place was a mob. We couldn't park anywhere, flocks of pedestrians were all over, hotels were full, and every few blocks there was a powerful PA system delivering thumpy music to drunk crowds. Ambulances were standing by and I'd be surprised if they went without customers. It is possible Fort Collins would be a bit less awful on any other weekend of the year.

We did see our dream house. About twenty minutes from downtown Boulder, up in the hills, on a couple of acres with a seasonal creek, an aspen grove, beautiful wooded hillsides and hiking trails, and even a cave. This one stole our hearts. It's a little farther from town than we'd like, and we'd still have to figure out how in the world we're going to support ourselves in our new habitat, but man, that place was lovely.

Comments

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

overwhelmingly Christian (you can't buy wine or buy a car on Sundays; WTF?)

I hadn't noticed that, but I haven't looked into either of those issues. I'm surprised, considering the liberal nature of the Boulder area. We have the same blue laws here in Indiana.

Of what I know so far, if I get a post-doc at NCAR or something like that, I could handle the Boulder area. :-) Although we'd probably live somewhere like Longmont, Louisville, or Lafayette - all somewhat near Boulder and less expensive.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Boulder itself seems like an island of liberal in a sea of not. The wine and car bits appear to be state laws. Certainly I could live with those restrictions; I'm not so addicted to wine that I'd go crazy if I ran out of it on the weekend, and I plan to buy my next car between 2020 and 2025.

The contrast between liberal and conservative is a plus for me. I am very tired of living in a place where there is Only One Answer. I'd get tired of the other side pretty darn quick, too. Having both is nice.

I too probably wouldn't live directly in the heart of Boulder due to price. I'd love to live in the hills, and it's possible we could afford something a little closer to town than the one we saw.

[platypus]

Reminds me a bit of Madison, a little liberal city-island in a sea of... well, rural Wisconsin. There's always been something appealing about it; small enough to be friendly, big enough to have stuff to do. If I were just in San Diego, without the smaller community of the university, I think I'd be lost.

[cassidyrose.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised, considering the liberal nature of the Boulder area.

It is my understanding that alcohol blue laws are state laws, not city laws. Being a native Californian I never knew until early adulthood that in many places alcohol of any kind cannot be purchased on Sundays AND hard alcohol cannot be purchased in grocery stores. I thought anyone in the US could get tequilla on avvSunday afternoon at their local grocery store--obviously that is not the case.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Do you know boxofdelights? She lives north of Boulder in the foothills, and could probably tell you a lot about living in that area.

[hnybny.livejournal.com]

The dream house sounds like the neighborhood I used to live in. We lived in the Boulder foothills up Four Mile Canyon. When G and I were house shopping in Boulder we saw every area over the course of 4 years. There are very few to avoid and mostly those because of lack of easy access. It is beautiful though.

[rfrench.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure where Four Mile Canyon is. This house is off Lefthand Canyon Dr.

[hnybny.livejournal.com]

That's a sweet area too, just off Hwy 36.

[tenacious-snail.livejournal.com]

I believe that klrmn was considering moving to Boulder when she moved to the Bay Area about 18 months ago. You might want to check in with her.

[kimatha.livejournal.com]

You do know you need to check out Billings, too, don't you? If you're looking as close as the Fort Collins area!

There's an aviation school at Rocky Mountain College, and Sam met one of the aviation instructors.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

After what you guys just went through? Holy Moly! I'll know to look for "defensible space".

[kimatha.livejournal.com]

Yep, even after what we went through. I love living in Billings. I'm starting to think I like it even more than Missoula, even though Missoula is right in the middle of mountains and has the hippie liberal college thing going (which I like, though Sam doesn't as much). Every place has its natural disasters. In Seattle we had earthquakes, in the South we had hurricanes. And after this fire, we have firebreaks all around us.

You should at least visit. You'll have a free place to stay!

[lesliepear.livejournal.com]

We have blue laws in our county about retail stores being closed on Sundays. It isn't hard here to drive to the next county and do what you have to. (At least you can plan ahead about buying wine or a car!)

[billeyler.livejournal.com]

I was surprised that Rob dropped ABQ from the mix because of home prices here. They're significantly lower here than in Boulder or even Denver.

But glad you made the trek there! City shopping can be fun! I did that with my first partner in 1980 and 1981 before we settled on Albuquerque. HIS prerequisite was that it had to have a decent (vinyl) record store!

[rfrench.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't say we dropped it - just moved it further down on the list. I think we'll still come out early next year. The thing with ABQ seemed to be that in order to get any decent land (say > .5 acres), you have to be pretty far from the city. So you end up with a long commute, or a small lot, but it's hard to get both. Also the whole water thing was a bit of a turnoff.

It's true that downtown Boulder is very expensive, but it's not so bad up in the hills. The "dream house" we found is about a 12 minute drive from the edge of town, $450K, on two gorgeous acres with a private forest. It doesn't seem like we can do that in ABQ. Or maybe we just had a bad real estate agent.

Speaking of which, the guy you recommended never returned my email.

[billeyler.livejournal.com]

Which guy was that? I think Danny recommended someone different than I did. He suggested Jim Sutton and I suggested Steve Benoit...

[rfrench.livejournal.com]

Steve. I don't think I tried to contact Jim Sutton.