Tell me about Colorado!

[valkyrie]

Okay, it's fun to hear about other places from those of you who know about them. I'm now considering a move to Colorado (yes, I change my mind all the time!) and would love to get the inside scoop on some of the towns there, including Boulder, Ft. Collins, Estes Park and Manitou Springs.

If you are familiar with any of these towns, I'd appreciate any insight, including:

What's fun?
How is the scenery?
Recreation?
Bar scene?
People?
Weather?
Are there any neighborhoods that are more or less desirable?
Anything someone should know before going there?
Anything else you might suggest?

I really appreciate it!

[cuaphi]

Okay, this is going to be fairly rambling. For one thing the A Phi alumnae group in Denver is one of the best in the country and the one's in Boulder and Ft. Collins seem to have recolonized several times and could really use help.

Boulder and Ft. Collins are both nice sized college towns around 100,000 people or so.
Boulder has a zero growth ordinance which is limiting construction and making rents sky high. This is largely opinion but I think the old spirit of hippie Boulder is being driven out by people who can afford million dollar houses and name their kids Jon-Benet. Sure, it's still the liberal holdout in state elections and has some cool things like Naropa Institute founded by Alan Ginsberg but I think it's turning into more of a lip service thing.
Anyway, being a college town there is still a lot of fun stuff going on. Soma is a nightclub that attracts world class dj's. Catacombs in the basement of Boulderado usually has a good band playing.
Also, Boulder is sort of considered part of the Denver metro area and is only half an hour from downtown but still feels fairly removed from the bussle of the city. There are also some cuter small towns surrounding Boulder worth checking out like Louisville and Lafayette.

Ft. Collins is about an hour north and is generally considered more 'real' than Boulder although I've heard people complain lately that it's getting too big, impersonal and snobby compared to how it was. This is probably just because the growth rate has been tremendous up there with about 40,000 people moving in over the last 5 years. I would call it your nice, typical, medium sized college town. Big enough to attract some major artists and have a decent bar scene but small enough that people still tend to know each other. Ft. Collins is nestled right next to the foothills so there are great little hikes right outside of the city and a big resevoir called Horsetooth (named for a rock said to resemble horse's teeth overlooking the city) where everybody likes to hang out.

Estes Park: Nice little mountain town but a little touristy. Major attraction for their cute little shops, proximity to Rocky Mountain National Park, and of course the Stanley Hotel where Stephen King supposedly thought up The Shining. If you want nice and mountainy but close to civilization I'd recommend Evergreen or Golden which are down I-70 on the way to the ski resorts.

Things to know: Colorado gets as much sunshine per year as San Diego. There are definite seasons and a fair amount of snowfall but nothing like the midwest. For one thing we have almost no humidity so the cold isn't so bone chilling and the hot isn't so stiffling and there tend to be random 65 degree days in the middle of the winter. We also have several of the top ten fittest cities in America out here due to the abundance of outdoor sports. Many, many people spend their free time skiing, hiking, mountain biking and camping. Other fun things to do include Rockies games in the summer, Broncos in the winter, Avs games during the long hockey season and (as I discovered last Saturday) Mammoth Lacrosse is fun and pretty cheap for a sporting event. We also have at least 4-5 great microbreweries who make some great beer like New Belgium, O'Dells, Left Hand, Breckenridge, etc.

People: The people are generally nice. Lots of lots of midwestern and east coast imports and (as long as you're not in central Denver) people still tend to smile at strangers.

Possible down side, the job market stinks. There was an article in the Post Sunday discussing how the continued migration to the State exceeds job growth projections for the next couple of years. We're also in the middle of a pretty major budget deficit right now. However, if you want to be a teacher as I think you've mentioned, there seems to be demand for that everywhere.

Ummm, what else. I don't know much about neighborhoods. The only named neighborhoods I'm familiar with are in Denver. Anything else you want to know just ask.

[sweetie adpi]

while i don't know much about the places you mentioned, my aunt and uncle lived in grand junction co. for a couple years. grand junction's a small city and pretty out of the way - it's i don't know how many hours from denver by car b/c of the mountains, most people take commuter flights which are less than an hour that way, which is how i got there... i have to say that colorado was GORGEOUS... i love to take photo's wherever i go and i took about nine rolls while i was there for about half a month, and most of my pics look like postcards, my friends didn't believe they were snapshots in my scrapbook. the people were incredibly pleasant, the weather was beatiful (almost No humidity!), and from everything i saw, i definitely don't think i would mind going back or living in co... though probably in a more populated area than gj. we got to go to utah, telluride and ouray while i was visiting as well and i know my aunt and uncle would go "exploring" on the weekends all over the state and they really enjoyed themselves.

[DeltAlum]

CUAPhi, did a pretty good job, so I'll just add a couple of thoughts:

Denver is like any other fairly big city -- it has goods and bads -- with the goods outnumbering the other.

Of course the immediate proximity to the mountains is the big difference in all seasons of the year.

Many Colorado residents participate in individual outdoor sports -- running, biking, skiing (snow and water), hiking, camping, rock climbing, golf, etc. The U.S. Olympic Training Center is in Colorado Springs. There are excellent and very competitive college sports at CU, Boulder, Colorado State and the Air Force Academy (also at Colorado Springs)

Some other stuff: Denver has the largest performing arts complex in the nation, outside New York City. The national tours of Sunset Boulevard and The Lion King both originated here in Denver. Two of Time Magazine's top ten theatrical events for the year 2000 (Tantalus, in cooperation with the Royal Shakespeare Company and The Laramie Project) were staged by the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and Coloradoans spend more money on the preforming arts yearly than professional sports. Having said that, we also have a brand new football stadium, new baseball stadium and new arena for the NBA and NHL. None is more than a few years old.

There is legalized "limited stakes" gambling in a number of the nearby mountain towns like Central City and Blackhawk -- about a hour outside Denver.

Denver tends to be a very white collar city, and has one of the (if not the) highest education levels anywhere. With the exception of Washington, DC, Denver has the highest number of Federal government employees in the country.

The largest "minority" population is Hispanic (around 13-14%) African American population is around 6-7%. Native American about 1%. There are also a fair number of Asian residents. The substantial majority, however, is Caucasion.

The public school systems are reasonably good, with one suburban system, Cherry Creek Schools, being considered in the top ten in the nation.

There are a number of excellent state and private colleges and universities. There are also some less known, and very affordable smaller state universities for instate students.

The old reputation about flying problems through Denver has been put to rest by new airport, which had the best ontime rate in the nation last year. It is the sixth (or seventh) busiest airport in the world. It is the only city in America where you can do a single hop satellite transmission to Western Europe and the Pacific Rim. We are must about midway between Frankfurt and Tokyo, and reasonably close to the geographic center of the US.

Great neighborhoods include Washington (Wash) Park, LoDo (Lower Downtown -- which is North of downtown for some reason) and the area around the University of Denver. All are a little pricy. There are a number of very nice suburbs. They say that housing prices rise with the altitude -- which means places like Evergreen and other "foothills" cities cost a lot to live in.

Finally, we've lived here over twenty years, and love the city and state. My theory about what makes Denver so much better (my opinion) than other cities I've visited of about the same size (2.5-3 million in the metro) is that Denver is so far away from other major cities, it has to be self-sustaining. It's too far to drive to the next big city. And, I think I've visited just about every major city in the country -- most on numerous occassions.

Which is a long way of saying, it's a pretty neat place.

Good luck.

[AlphaSigOU]

Originally posted by DeltAlum
...and the Air Force Academy (also at Colorado Springs)...

Oh no... not the Zoo! (What some Air Force Academy alumni disparagingly name their alma mater.) Spent time in technical school at Lowry AFB in Denver. (The base is now closed and was successfully converted to a planned community.)

[valkyrie]

Thank you SO much!!!!!! I really appreciate the thoughtful and very, VERY informative responses, and am even more excited to get out there. Seriously, CO sounds so wonderful I can't believe that everyone doesn't live there.

[DeltAlum]

Originally posted by AlphaSigOU
Oh no... not the Zoo! (What some Air Force Academy alumni disparagingly name their alma mater.)
Alpha Sig,

Home of the Zoomies! Actually, one of my very favorite stadiums from which to televise football games is Falcon Stadium. (Actually, all three service schools are beautiful places to shoot)

Spent time in technical school at Lowry AFB in Denver. (The base is now closed and was successfully converted to a planned community.)

Lots of big expensive new houses.

Did a simulated 1940's USO type show there several years ago to raise money for a veteran's monument which is now across from the Colorado Capitol building. It was a Christmas time. Bob Hope was the star, big band (Shades of Blue from the Academy), dancers, comics, Miss Colorado all staged in front of the B-52 inside Hangar One. Could not broadcast the show, but microwaved it over to Fitzsimmons (Army Medical Center) for the patients.

As I'm sure you know, the "Air Force Academy" actually opened at Lowry before the campus was completed at the Springs.

That's another thing to point out about Colorado. Lots of military. NORAD, US Space Command, Peterson AFB, Falcon Air Station, Buckley AFB (just taken back over by the Air Force after being an ANG base), Ft. Carson, etc.

[AlphaSigOU]

Originally posted by DeltAlum
...That's another thing to point out about Colorado. Lots of military. NORAD, US Space Command, Peterson AFB, Falcon Air Station, Buckley AFB (just taken back over by the Air Force after being an ANG base), Ft. Carson, etc.

Not to mention a few ICBM silos in far NE Colorado, part of the 90th Space Wing at Warren AFB in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

[DeltAlum]

Oh, one other thing. It was 55 degrees & bright sunshine today. Down to 20 tonight and back up to the mid 50's tomorrow.

Not necessarily normal for February 12, but not terribly unusual either.