sean's place

Welcome to Colorful Colorado

I’ve moved to Colorado! I now live on the southeast end of Fort Collins — and loving it.

Many thanks to Myles for the major assist – without you, this move effort would have been 10X harder.

I learned a few lessons from this trip:

• Pre-plan. Before I moved, I scheduled Myles’s return plane ticket, ensured he had iPod access for the trip, got a hotel room, purchased boxes, found an apartment and signed the lease, reserved the moving truck, planned a route, and got mostly squared-away for the drive the night before. All of these steps paid major dividends and with the exception of cleaning my old apartment, none were rushed or overly stressful.
• Pack by destination room only. I did this — mostly. I wish I was a little more judicious though; I shouldn’t have been so anal about efficiency and packed only kitchen stuff in the kitchen boxes, etc. It’s really annoying to find bedroom stuff, office stuff, and a car soap in the same box and have to sort it all out.
• Ask for help. That’s what friends are for.
• Take it easy.

On Thursday morning, after an hour of making sure everything was ‘just so’ and ready, Myles and I headed out on what would become a 16 hour haul to Fruita, CO (on the Western Slope). We trekked down a very hazy 99 corridor, south through Bakersfield, up highway 58 into the Tehachapi mountains, and through to I-15 at Barstow. We stopped for gas, and made the short (relatively) haul to Las Vegas, NV where we breaked for lunch at Sonic.

At this point, I thanked my lucky stars that I remembered that Sonic was on Sahara!

We stopped for a brief filling of the tanks; my Mazda achieved a record 36 mpg. I spent most of this drive drafting behind the moving truck, and it had a very positive effect on gas mileage! (I regularly get 23-25mpg highway, and 18-20mpg city).

We set out from Las Vegas along I-15 (this is a 402 mile stretch) through very dry but visually interesting terrain. Shortly after crossing into the Arizona border, we were greeted by the Virgin River Gorge; a stunning meeting of nature and interstate. The road wound through the gorge with frequent river views. Simply stunning.

Our stay in Arizona was short, as we crossed rather quickly into Utah. My preconception of Utah as a dry salt flat was immediately shattered with the green rolling hills along I-15 and I-70. We crossed some absolutely beautiful terrain in twilight before we landed at Richfield, UT for gas and dinner. Unfortunately, before we finished dinner, the day had turned to darkness, causing us to miss out on further Utah scenery. The only thing of note was a sign shortly out of Richfield that said something like: “No services for 117 miles, and that’s no bull!”

We made restfall at a lovely La Quinta Inn in Fruita, CO at nearly midnight mountain time. We both popped out or laptops, checked our email, and proceeded to fall into a very deep state of sleep.

An alarm clock, shower, complimentary breakfast, and gassing up preceded our late morning departure from Fruita for the 6 hour stretch into Fort Collins. We summitted at 10,614 feet on I-70 and drove through some very quaint mountain towns. We stopped for lunch and coffee at Avon, complete with crazy traffic circles, and headed back out onto I-70. We caught sight of a bike trail that seemed to go the entire length of I-70 from the beginning of the climb, to both summits, and down the other side. At points, it seemed to follow a river, and at other points, had lovely views of the mountains. This part of the drive was incredibly pretty. Note to self: train up and ride this bike trail.

The ride down into Denver was uneventful. We crossed, in heavy traffic, to I-76 and then to I-25. We finally made it to smooth sailing around the Erie exit. We arrived at my new place shortly after 17:00 MDT.

–

Myles documented the weekend here, complete with photos.

–

The weekend is now over, and I’m slowly getting unpacked. I finally got my desk setup and my network going tonight. Kaaren and Raymond invited me over for dinner and a movie this evening — something I thoroughly enjoyed.

I guess I’m now a Coloradoan-in-training.