Tell me about Colorado

Near Durango? where? I am FROM Durango and now live in Arvada (suburb just northwest of Denver). I work downtown Denver and have for the past 11 years....LOVE IT! I will never move from Denver. AND I too do not ski or snow board. My family is lucky to get me up to the resort! LOL I went to Durango High School and Fort Lewis College for a bit. If your FI is a native Durangotang....I wonder how old he is?

Love to see some girls close to home on here!

Very nice....we are hoping to buy a home in Arvada next year after the wedding and a few other events. I have lived all over the Denver Metro area and Arvada is so far my favorite...very old town, but right next door to Everything!

Maybe we'll bump into each other at the Dollar Tree! LOL

I just got a book with all the ski resorts in Colorado and I think im more confused now than I was before!

I LOVE this thread! Great info! We are planning to move to either CO or WA... I've been applying to jobs in both places. We love snowboarding, mountain biking, rock climbing, etc. and REALLY want to get out of California.

Andy- You are so funny! I am a Californian that doesn't surf! haha

~Jaime

I'm going to bump this thread again. I have thought about this some more and have more of an idea of what I'm looking for. Please let me know if this sounds like any specific area. I'm hoping to fly out in October to look around, but will only have a couple of days there.

I'm looking for something just outside of Denver. Chris and I are definitely becoming foodies, so an area with a lot of good restaurants is a must. Right now I have about a million chain restaurants around me and I hate it! I like an area that limits the amount of chains that can come in. Also, we like a wide variety of food.

We're not big shoppers, but would like to have stuff within 15 minutes of where we are. I don't want a bunch of stores on top of me, but I don't want to be far removed from them either.

I love farmers markets. Fresh local produce is the best!

I'm not sure how far out the airport is, but I would prefer to have it within a half hour, 45minutes at the most. If we move there, we would have to fly to see every one of our family members.

We do not plan on having kids, so we're not concerned with moving into the best school district or having tons of kid-friendly things in the area. We're not really into kids at all actually, but we understand that being in our late 20's/early 30's, that just comes with the territory. We want to be around a lot of people our age.

I know there's more I wanted to post, but that's all I can think of right now.

Thing to know every suburb in Denver metro area is less than 1 hour to the airport. But everything is also 30 at least to the airport since they built the new one so far away from downtown.

I think you would love Old Town Arvada if you are set on a suburb. It has a ton of new restarurants and shopping. a little old town area. Andi lives over there and can be more hlep. You are west of the city and closer to the mtns, also closer to Golden and Boulder, if one of you finds a job there, the commute is certainly eaiser.

Another up and coming fun western suburb is lakewood, specifically the Belmar area.

There are also a lot of jobs in the Denver Tech Center (DTC) this is south of the City about 20 minutes. If you end up working down south, a lot of young professionals also live in the area and there is tons of eating and shopping (Greenwood Village, Centennial).

I do caution of going too far East, seems like if i have friends who move out there, I never see them again, but it all new, lots of new stores and stuff, and the houses are newer and less pricey.

I am more of a city girl myself. I just like to be very social and a lot of the stuff I do is near and around the city. So I like to option of being able to take taxi's home etc when I need to. But remember the city = Denver... not a big city that you are used to, more hum drum and not crowded.

My Fave Neighborhoods:

South- Wash Park

West- the highlands

Central-Capital Hill

East- Park Hill, City Park, Stapleton

We live in Stapleton, which is acutally in the city of Denver, but at the eastern edge towards the airport. It is where the old airport was that they tore down and put up a brand new neighbor hood with a town center and it is big on land usage so that the houses vs park space. I absolutely love it. I work in the DTC (south) and Ev works in Boulder (NW) so it is centrally located for us.

These are the things I can walk to from my house:

3 pools

3 tennis courts

dog park

town center which includes (5 rest, coffee, shops, curves, salon, yoga, grocery store, drug store)

Free concerts on every other sat night (BYOB)

Free outdoor movie night- everyother sat (i dont go, kinda kid oriented)

sun morning farmers market

last sat of the month- sweet william market (antiques and crafts)

annual beer fest

skate park

rock climbing wall

amazing miles of paved trails thru open space.

Sun nights in the summer is free Jazz in the park

** Anyhow I love stapleton and like the mix it has of suburb but still in the city.

Erika, that sounds wonderful! I was just talking to a co-worker at lunch who is from Denver and she mentioned Stapleton and Lowery? I think. She also said don't write off living in the city because there are a lot of residential areas. Good to know.

We'd probably look to buy a townhouse. I want to see grass around, not a ton of concrete. We tend to like newer, more modern architecture, but I also like a blending of the two. I keep thinking Andi lives in Aurora, not Arvada. Oops!

Thanks for letting me know that about the airport, I didn't realize it was built farther. That's perfectly fine, just good to know. At home I have a little airport about 10 minutes away, but the major ones take like an hour and a half. With traffic, it can take much longer. That gets old, you know?

So basically I need to set up camp somewhere and just get to exploring. Not to stalk you Erika, but it sounds like Stalpeton would be a good place to start. I'd also like to check out Wash. Park and The Highlands. My co-worker told me that Capital Hill is probably not what I'm looking for (this is before I read your response). You two definitely mentioned almost all the same areas though, so it makes me feel like I'm getting somewhere. Thank you SO much!

Cap Hill- it is def more central, city ish, but walkable to parks. (not affordable to buy, but affordable for renting)

Wash Park- not affordable to buy, but renting is fine

Lowrey and Stapleton are next to each other and offer very similar life styles, but Stapleton has 3 pools vs lowery zero, stapleton has the dog park (face it, if you move to colorado you veyr well may get a dog), and stapleton is building a rec center, lowry none but they have a nice 24 hr fitness extreme, lowry has a library already, stapleton is going to build in 2012. Also both lowry and stapleton have been built in the last 7 or so years, so there are brand new homes being built to buy or rent and there are newer homes/townhomes to buy. Discover Stapleton | A Sustainable Community Near Downtown Denver

The Highlands - can be affordable, it is a lot of turn over, used to be kinda ethnic and is now turning very yuppy, so depends if you fix up your own house it is affordable, if you bought one with a lot of work done it can be a little more, but there are a ton of duplexes and townhomes.

You just turned me off to The Highlands! We're not the fixer-upper type. Thank goodness I have you Erika! I want to get out there now and start looking around.

It's funny how some areas are affordable to rent but not buy. Around here it often makes a lot more sense to buy than rent because it doesn't cost much more.