Living in rural USA
The wildflowers are lovely at Cordova Pass!
To celebrate our two year anniversary of moving to this beautiful part of Colorado, we drove up to Cordova Pass yesterday. As usual we had no traffic on the way up there and only met one other couple along the way.
Cordova Pass, at 11,248 feet, lies on the western shoulder of the West Spanish Peak, east of the Culebra Range of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The drive up the pass can be a bit rough at times, but I enjoyed moving through the various eco-systems, and did not even know that we might be able to camp up there sometime. They have a bathroom!
We had heard that mid-June is a great time to see wildflowers up there, and they were right. These Blue Flag Wild Iris were everywhere…
…along with lots of Golden Banner and dandelions.
Along the way at the lower elevations we saw lots of these beautiful bushes in bloom. Thanks to my botanist friends I now know these are New Mexican Locust. No wonder I never saw them up north.
Lots of great views near the top of the pass…
…and the trees along the road were florescent GREEN!
Then there is this very cool arch cut into a dike on the other side of the pass. We had to stop so Mike could study the geology of the whole thing, of course.
Our drive down the North Fork of the Apishapa River Valley, down through Gulnare and Aguilar, was lush and so beautiful! This is one of the few places I have been in this country where everything seems exactly like it might have been a hundred years ago.
And I loved this cool looking Teletubbie village up on the hill!
Bye Bye!
Enjoying a Celebration of Never Moving Again!
Today marks two years since we left our perfectly nice home in suburbia for the adventure of a lifetime. It may not sound like such a big deal to move to small town USA to build a custom solar home in the southern Colorado foothills, but it was for us at age 60!
We moved to Walsenburg on June 17th 2014, to sleep on the floor of this hundred-year-old rental, moving in the next day and staying there for 13 months while our new home was forming far too SLOWLY 20 minutes west of town at 7,000 feet. Mike worked as the contractor and purchaser of all things when we found the builder was not taking competitive bids, but just hiring his local friends.
Then on July 30th, 2015 we moved into our new home, HOME AT LAST!
For weeks after that move we just sat and stared out the window, mesmerized with the awesome views out our front windows, too exhausted to do anything else. We finally made it to our goal after many, many challenges and so many days of absolute stress.
Why did we do it? Our trip to Pueblo yesterday answers that question quickly. Being in cities always ruins my day. We need to go there occasionally to buy certain things, but the stress, the heat, the traffic, the bad air and bad manners of other drivers always convinces us we will never live there again!
We have no patience with cities anymore, and why should we when we have a magnificent place where we can escape them?
Today we will drink a toast to surviving all these many changes and challenges, and also to never moving again! Instead we will try to get our patio finished this summer, enjoy the great wildflower displays everywhere, the cool mountain breezes each evening, and offer encouragement to others who have found their new home in this small slice of heaven.
Want to learn more about our experience of moving from the city to the country to live a quiet, relaxed life? Check it out here!
Why write about yourself and your experiences?
As I begin working on my next book, a journal of retirement, I wondered why anyone would find this story interesting. I have certainly had more interest in this blog than I ever expected, with over 50,000 views so far from over 25,000 visitors all over the world! I so enjoy seeing those from other countries taking an interest in our escapades in rural southern Colorado.
Of course the next question is why blog at all? Why do some wish to share their daily lives and lessons with others, while most can’t even imagine it?
In this particular case, I thought there might be some who would like to see what it feels like to choose to leave a nice suburban home in one of the “best retirement cities in the country” to move to a rural area with little traffic or shopping, but so much amazing natural beauty and lovely silence. And as I read the posts I wrote a couple years ago, when considering this gigantic change for myself, I do find my thoughts and worries interesting in retrospect.
I guess what interests me the most is the psychology of changing something major in your life, especially past age 50 or 60. Why do some take the risk and go for it, while others stay home and watch TV? I guess it just comes down to personal taste, but also a gigantic fear of change.
I was full of fear the day we sold our nice home in Fort Collins. I really did not know what to expect, and I admit it, parts of our experience down here have been quite discouraging. But now I know we made the right choice for both of us. Sometimes you just have to take the big risk, leap, and build your wings on the way down.
“We must be willing to get rid of the life we had planned, to have the life that is waiting for us.” — Joseph Campbell
3 Worst Gadgets by Rasta the Wonder Dog
Helping my crazy parents out with our home construction…
My mom Laura and I were recently watching the TV show: 101 Gadgets That Changed The World, when it suddenly struck both of us at once that there are a few of these supposed “top gadgets” that have changed the world in a very BAD WAY!
We can go either way on most gadgets. Like a picnic ice chest, what’s not to like about an ice chest except that they are far too heavy to carry sometimes when you drink too much beer, and they never hold enough dog treats!
What’s not to like about a blender, I mean really…
But there are a few supposed improvements in modern life that have simply made life worse. The number one gadget in this list is the Mobile/SmartPhone.
It all started with the Blackberry, introduced in 1999; by 2009 50 million of these devices had been sold. Originating in Finland and Japan in the 1970s, mobile phones have fast become the most widely used gadget in the world. Today over 75% of the world’s population use them. However, that does not include me.
I have witnessed far too many people who have become slaves to their phones. Some even ignore the person (or dog!) in front of them, and just play with their phone non-stop. People can be so stupid sometimes!
Me, I’ve never used a phone so I just don’t get it. I prefer the up-close and personal approach, like jumping in the car with whomever appears in my driveway. Yes, that does include the UPS man.
I think number two, the radio is OK, but I’m not so sure about number three, the television. It seems to me it just gives everybody a great excuse to veg-out. People can be so lazy! Some can even sleep as much as I do, and that’s too much!
One thing I really don’t like is number five, the personal computer. My mom spends far too much time on hers. She sometimes won’t even let me sit on her lap while she’s typing. Totally a BAD IDEA! Anything that takes her undivided attention away from me stinks!
I’m a newcomer to rural southern Colorado. After two years I decided to compile a short journal about the ups and downs of moving from a good-sized city to rural America to build a passive solar retirement home in the foothills: A Memoir of Retirement: From Suburbia to Solar in Southern Colorado
Please share this information with your friends if they are considering similar life changes. Feel free to contact me directly to discuss any of these challenges, and to order your own signed copies of any of my books! Cheers, Laura Lee (email me: MidlifeCrisisQueen@gmail.com)
Last evening it started pouring rain around 6:15 pm and didn’t stop. Then the hail started falling on our steel roof and scared the cat. Half-inch diameter hail started pelting us with a vengence!
Adventures of the NEW??? Old Farts 