Quote from: ChrissyRyan on May 04, 2025, 02:14:12 PMConsider checking out some of these places Lori:
Grand Junction
And. . .
Note that some may not provide much of what many would call affordable housing!
Some are more remote.
Aspen
Boulder
Breckenridge
Crested Butte
Durango
Estes Park
Frisco
Ouray
Telluride.
Plus Colorado Springs, Denver, Glenwood Springs, Loveland, Silverton, Steamboat Springs, Woodland Park and perhaps Creede, Cripple Creek, Georgetown, Leadville and the Pueblo you plan to check out. You know about Fort Collins.
Good luck.
Maybe you have been to all of them but not necessarily to find rentals or homes to buy.
To understand Colorado, you can look at the state map and see that the state is divided north-south by I-25. To east east are the flatlanders (prairie farmers/ranchers), and to the west are the Rocky Mountains. Northern Colorado is expensive (north of Colorado Springs and Denver) and is strong Republican conservative. South of Denver along the I-25 corridor the cost of living gets cheaper with the cheapest being near Trinidad, not far from New Mexico. Toward the west slope of the Rockies (Grand Junction, Montrose, etc.) is also Trump country. The San Luis Valley near Grand Junction is nicknamed Trump Valley because of all the Trump signs.
What keeps Colorado Democrat is that along the I-25 corridor are the highest population areas (Fort Collins, Denver, Colorado Springs). High population areas vote Democrat. But high population areas have higher crime, higher cost of living, higher homelessness, drug and gang problems, etc.
Southern Colorado is more liberal, but the towns are smaller. That means lower cost of living, but also limited services like medical specialty clinics, shopping, etc. So it makes sense to me to be in the southern area of the state, but close enough to the larger cities for access to services.
My main goal is mostly to re-establish residency to gain the protections that state laws offer. Pueblo is not ideal, but it offers enough necessities for me to live until I figure out what's next. The way the country is going, I don't know if I will even stay here. But for now, I will have a place and can save up enough money for a major move if needed.
Estes Park is one of my parents' favorite places. They often go there and drive through Rocky Mountain National Park. I spent a wedding anniversary at the
Stanley Hotel. This is where Stephen King stayed when he wrote
The Shining.
There are stories of the hotel being haunted. I had a friend who was an avid ghost hunter, and we spent many weekends in some pretty amazing places. While at the Stanley, she asked us to do some ghost hunting while we were there. I took hundreds of photos and recorded about 12 hours of audio. The only spooky thing was that at about 3:00 am, while we were sleeping, the audio recorder caught the sound of the dresser drawer opening and closing. The door was locked, and no way that anyone was in the room with us. They would have knocked over a suitcase that was blocking the door, and it was untouched.
Many of the other places mentioned are popular ski resorts. Telluride and Aspen are the most expensive places in the state. Many multi-million dollar homes and estates in those areas.
