From Cheyenne, Wyoming, we shot all the way down to Pueblo, Colorado, in one day. Since the walls were closing in on us due to all the effects COVID was having on our society – on our way of life – we needed to pull the parachutes. Landing in Southern Colorado didn’t sound too bad.
Years ago Chels and I fell in love with Pagosa Springs. We drove through several times on road trips to Colorado and Utah. The surrounding Wenimuche and South San Juan Wilderness areas are enormous swaths of mountains with canyons and rivers I’ve wanted to explore. I told Chels, “We can live and work in Pueblo, play in Pagosa.” It’s a short drive. We could be there any given weekend.
Over a decade ago I went to school in Boulder. I started a business there and fooled with it for several years before moving it to Denver. I’ve always loved Colorado but more than anything, it’s the mountains. They’ve always held a charm over me. As John Muir so famously quoted, “The mountains are calling and I must go.”
The more we talked about it, the more building a life in Pueblo made sense. We spent several days reconnoitering the area.
July 4th popped on us. We shot up to Erie to celebrate with our good friends The Townsends. Kristy got the kids tie-dying shirts red, white and blue while Brownlow got them distracted with a large bounce house he borrowed from a neighbor. As darkness fell it seemed like the entire neighborhood was outside with their kids, setting off fireworks long into the night.
We spent another day with The Townsends so our kids could ramble around some more. After being stuck in such a small space for a few weeks the kids needed to stretch out and play – AND with a friend. By now, all the kids were beginning to mourn the loss of their friends in Oregon.
Back in Pueblo we found a house that fit our needs. We made an offer, got it under contract, then hitched the caboose and moved it down to Durango to rendezvous with Giddings Castleman Brown IV, my mythical Great-Uncle Skipper.
