Background: `lived in Rockford Illinois most of my life. Northern Illinois has a lot of GREEN in the summertime. Medium to perhaps medium-low for humidity in the summertime. Average temps & sun. Average bugs. A summertime rain would be horizon to horizon grey clouds for a day or two with the region getting wet. Wintertime could easily see many, consecutive, days of 100% grey sky. When it snowed, the area needed to be shoveled or the snow would pack and stay for most of the winter. In the winter, I typically/always wore a coat in the daily routine of walking from car to office visit / client site. Daily temp swing is typically 20F (as I recall, stats might prove it to be ~25F).
Back around 1992 I came close to moving to Colorado Springs. I visited the area for three days and decided against it for these reasons: I visited over the Christmas/New Year break and the amount of smog sitting in "the bowl" (as I saw it) that the city sat in made me shy away. Additionally, I wondered how stable the economy would be if the government would pull out / have severe cutbacks.
Move ahead to 2007: The decision to relocate to Colorado was set. I used CityData and reviewed town sizes (Rockford IL was about 150K and with surrounding (Loves Park, Machesney Park, Cherry Valley) area pushed the pop to about 200K). I looked for something not quite that large, but similar. Durango & Montrose were smaller but they were the largest areas on the western slope and I wished to give them/rural Colorado a look. Grand Junction didn't appeal to me so it was off the list. Colorado Springs was off the list due to the 1992 visit. Pueblo didn't appeal to me, much the same that GJ didn't (they just didn't catch my eye). Additionally, I did not wish a large area - metro Denver was out. I like to be able to get out of town in less than 15 minutes of driving (that can be had in parts of Denver).
There is not much for population of my interest "in the mountains" so all mountain locations were not considered. Still, I have little interest in living / working in a mountain town - though I could be swayed.
What was left was the front range area north of Denver. Boulder / Golden was rather "big city" / Denver sprawl and weren't of much interest. Longmont / Loveland / Fort Collins were the focus. I knew nothing of those three cities before visiting them (for a day each - mostly driving around to get a feel [not scientific or thorough - it was what it was].
Longmont has a nice downtown. It's alive and seemed to be a working downtown. Actually, the whole north-south (US-287) strip is a decent business area with two or three blocks downtown to be "walkabout".
Loveland gave me a bit more of a small town feel. Where Longmont had a north-south strip of business, Loveland had a + / cross layout. The north-south (US-287) highway and the east-west (US-34) highway have it being more spread out. Where US-34 bumps around Lake Loveland (water owned by Greeley) gives traffic a nice waterside view. Longmont's stretch on US-287 wasn't of much eye candy (though it's no eye candy in Loveland either) - the US-34 lake area I come back to (this is a spot where I'll stop for lunch/dinner if I'm in town before/after a client visit).
A tad north on US-287 we hit Fort Collins (FoCo). It's downtown, one block wide on either side of 287 and 3 or 4 blocks long is vibrant. "Old Town" is a focal point for town (city planners know it and treat it as such). FoCo, like Loveland, is a bit of a cross / + layout with US-287 north-south and Harmony being east-west. Harmony is "the new strip" that heads east to I-25. I didn't know it at the time, but after choosing to live here, several have told me that FoCo was rated (a couple times) as a top / top ten city to live in. It's quite bicycle friendly with bike lanes on many roads. The bus system as bike racks for transporting bikes on the bus.
FoCo is a college town - Colorado State University (
www.ColoState.edu) but the city's large enough to not notice much difference when school's in (folks do comment on higher traffic when school is in). There is current controversy over them relocating their stadium, which is currently out at the western edge of town, to on campus.
There is a decent (I can't speak for Loveland or Longmont) micro brew crowd in town - from pure personal (a neighbor of mine - and something not uncommon to see folks in their garage brewing) brewers to the major (Anheuser-Bush / Budweiser). New Belgium (Fat Tire), Fort Collins Brewery, ODell come to mind. Bottom line - it's the water. Yes, the water is good. It's "first use" snowmelt that needs very little conditioning. Not that you care, but it's all gravity fed - there are no pumps or water towers (I toured the facility on the CityWorks class).
http://fortcollinsbreweryguide.com/breweries.aspxhttp://fortcollinsbreweryguide.com/default.aspxhttp://www.visitftcollins.com/dining-nightlife/breweries-pubsThe town has grown south, and slightly to the north from downtown / Old Town. Housing is more costly than "home" in Illinois. City sales tax is high (in comparison to neighbors). Fort Collins is a home rule city.
State 2.9%
County: 0.6% (Larimer)
City: 3.85%
This past summer I was "accepted" into their CityWorks 101 class. Once a year the city puts on a class for 30 people, once a week for ?6? weeks and two optional weekends. Every ?Thursday? at about 5:30pm we'd meet in a different city department, enjoy dinner, and listen to speakers / slideshows / take a tour of the department. The city was opening their doors to the residents. After the first couple classes I came away with an odd question - are these people TRULY enthusiastic about their jobs and the city??? All of them were solid folk who LOVED their job. Perhaps they were told to "act positive" for the "students". I came away, after all of the sessions to believe that each of them is true to their word / actions - they love their jobs (or they did a REALLY good job pushing it out). Media department / City Council / Streets & Traffic / Power Distribution* are but a few I specifically recall. Two "Saturday" field trips were on the docket - Fresh Water Treatment, mentioned above, and Fire Department (rescheduled as not enough people were interested / could attend - goofy - who wouldn't want to play with a fire hose).
* Power distribution: A selling point of FoCo to big biz is that near 100% of the city enjoys buried power lines. The only above ground power lines are the high tension / transmission lines to the sub stations (I think there are 9). From the stations out to the end use, buried. This equates to them being top ?10? in the nation for power availability (not having outages). They also have a short outage rating / get outages fixed quickly. I have only experiended (2007 to 2014) one outage. A car backed into the transformer by my back door (apartment / condo complex). Crews were onsite in ~20 minutes with the repair complete in a couple hours - I watched them work through most of it).
The city of FoCo buys power from (the local coop??). The local power company has a coal plant north of town (which also gives free tours and is in the top five for cleanest in the country), wind turbines near the CO/WY border and has fractional ownership of the coal plant at Craig CO. They are putting / have nat gas turbines in place at the coal plant north of town. The power utility supplies power to Fort Collins / Loveland / Longmont / Estes Park. One tidbit noticed by another tour person at the power plant on a cool winter's day: The Rawhide power plant (north of town) was consuming more power than the city of Estes Park. It was due to the amount of water pumps needed to push water around. It was interesting to walk up to the turbine / generator and put your hand on it and feel it spinning.
OK, enough of stuff you might think - why did he even bother typing THAT?
Weather: Weather, or more specifically, moisture is the big difference between FoCo / the Front Range of Colorado (think the I-25 corridor / the western end of the Great Plains / where the mountains start) and Illinois. There is much less moisture here than in the Midwest.
In the summer, there is less humidity. There is less GREEN (green lawns are irrigated and are not natural) here. On the plains / out of the mountains - TREES are not as common. Trees are only found where there are people or near a river / stream. Trees are not common "out on the plains". There are fewer flying bugs - but mosquito's do exist (too much). FoCo has had one or two West Nile deaths or infections. It seems the city has a page for it:
http://www.fcgov.com/westnile/ .
In the sky, there are fewer clouds. In the summertime, the weather forecast is often 10% chance of rain many days in a row. What that means is in the afternoon, a cumulonimbus type of cloud that often dot the sky, could drop rain. The cloud is two miles wide. If you're under it when it's dumping you will be soaked. Everywhere else will be dry. No horizon to horizon grey cloud with rain for hours. One full cloudy day, every so often. Two, back to back, cloudy days - huh. Three back to back - WHAT'S WRONG?!?! In the wintertime this equates to SUN SUN SUN. Denver boats 300 sunny days a year. In the wintertime, at night, FoCo is often a degree or few COLDER than Rockford IL. The difference is in the daytime. With greater sun, and perhaps higher elevation (5000 ft vs. 980 ft for Rockford), snow MELTS. Last winter, I wore my winter coat, in my daily routine, only twice. Daytimes often get above freezing. Why shovel when it'll melt. Yes, we can get large snowfalls (and the city plows primary & secondary roads - but not tertiary roads - they let it melt). IMPORTANT POINT: If buying a house - get one with a sun facing driveway. DO NOT buy a north facing driveway house unless the price is right.
Temp swings, 25 to 40F per day. When the sun disappears, the temps DROP (winter and summer). In Illinois, an uncomfortable week would have the A/C running 100% with closed windows for the week. Here, while central A/C is appreciated, windows often open up at 7p and close up in the morning with A/C turning on from ~1 to 6pm. A 100F day could start out at 60F. It'd only be in the uncomfortable range for a few hours.
The sun thing: I'm not a weather person, but I'll play one on the Internet. This layman sees it this way: Pacific Coast moisture travels east and gets "pushed up" when it flows over the mountains. As it pushes up it is cooled, with clouds forming (mountain areas I'd think are more cloudy) - the more SUN aspect is a Front Range issue, which you'll see. That moisture precipitates in the mountains. When the air mass reaches the eastern end of the mountains, it starts to descent (and warm / which allows it to hold the moisture - what little it has left to hold). Thus, as the air mass comes over the front range area there are no clouds. The ??30 mile wide?? stretch at the western end of the Great Plains gets sun. East a ways we can see clouds start to form. It is common enough that one can look west, over the mountains, and see an angry cloud mass hanging out ALL DAY LONG. Knowing the winds are blowing west to east - but yet those clouds never show up over town. Not sure I'd want to live in Estes Park - but I'll happily live in FoCo, a 45 minute drive away.
That's Pacific Coast moisture. Now for Gulf moisture. When an low pressure zone (low's "spin left" / counterclockwise") sits over the Albuquerque NM area, it seems to grab moisture, kick it north, then spin it west to the front range. This is the reverse of the typical west to east Pacific airflow. This moisture, gets pushed up, cooled, and precipitates on and just to the west of the Front Range area. These are called "Albuquerque Low" or "Upslope" storms. You might recall that tidbit of "1000 year flood" from last September. An Albuquerque Low stalled in place for four days and SLAMMED us (Golden to FoCo).
Roads - different than the Midwest. In the Midwest there were roads "all over" - though the interest level was not stellar. Here, heading into the mountains, there are few roads, though the interest level is decently high. The two areas are different - higher quality though more repetitive / lower quality with less repetition / more variety. The five, paved, mountains roads near-ish me for an afternoon ride (US-287 to Red Feather Lakes, CO-14 northwest of FoCo, US-34 Loveland to Estes Park, US-36 Lyons to Estes Park, CO-7 / St. Vrain Canyon southwest from Lyons CO) get repetitive, though they are nice curvy roads. Here's a list of roads / comments I have compiled (with help from others):
http://www.jimwilliamson.net/temp/CO-What-To-Do-text.txthttp://www.jimwilliamson.net/temp/CO-What-To-Do-map.jpg(both files are needed to make sense of things)
The flip side of the mountains is the Pawnee Grasslands 40 minutes east of town on CO-14. WIDE OPEN SPACES (due to no trees). That area is a nice contrast to the visually confining, tree filled canyons.
Oh, we have a Pine Bark Beetle issue. They're killing swaths of mountain pine trees. This equates to brown forests and those that are at risk for crazy forest fires. I don't expect to see some of these areas regenerate in my lifetime / they'll likely only get more brown and unsightly. Camping / hiking in dead tree areas is dangerous as a tree could fall over and kill-ya (setting up camp out of reach of "deadfall" is a fundamental).
That's all for tonight (and perhaps, that's all). Any question, fire away. If you come to visit - kick up a thread for the local's to meet for lunch or dinner. I'm bikeless these days though Carl or LT could enjoy a ride with ya. I can give Jeep trail rides if you're interested to see some of that stuff.
(Dang - that's longer than a "Carl Rant" (tm))
