Colorado Road Trip Questions

[jzweedyk]

If you are coming to Moab get the Moab 4x4 book by Wells. He describes all the trails, how hard they are and where they are located. Many trails are Raptor friendly, but many are not with body damage almost assured. However there are so many Raptor friendly trails, you can do a different one each day for several weeks.

It may snow, but usually not too much and mostly will melt in a day or two.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

West Texas is great year round !

Yea, West Texas is also ugly year around too

Lol it depends on what parts of West Texas we are talking about.

 

[GordoJay]

Yea, West Texas is also ugly year around too

Lol it depends on what parts of West Texas we are talking about.

There's a part that isn't ugly? Fill me in. We've talked about moving somewhere freer. Colorado is taking the same path that California took a decade or so ago, and I'm looking at options before we go full ********. Some of my deplorable friends are also looking. One is talking Arizona, the other Tennessee. Arizona appeals more to me, although I worry about Clusterfornia transplants ******** it up too.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

There's a part that isn't ugly? Fill me in. We've talked about moving somewhere freer. Colorado is taking the same path that California took a decade or so ago, and I'm looking at options before we go full ********. Some of my deplorable friends are also looking. One is talking Arizona, the other Tennessee. Arizona appeals more to me, although I worry about Clusterfornia transplants ******** it up too.

El Paso and Big Bend has some nice scenery. Anything in the pan handle and around the Midland area is mostly ugly. The hill country is nice too. DFW, Austin, and SA has some nice communities.

Lol I know this can be applicable to anywhere you move, but if you have money, there are some nice upper class communities that you can move into across Texas. I was fortunate to live where I did in DFW—it definitely helped ease some of the withdrawals I was having after moving to Texas from Idaho.

 

[GordoJay]

El Paso and Big Bend has some nice scenery. Anything in the pan handle and around the Midland area is mostly ugly. The hill country is nice too. DFW, Austin, and SA has some nice communities.

Lol I know this can be applicable to anywhere you move, but if you have money, there are some nice upper class communities that you can move into across Texas. I was fortunate to live where I did in DFW—it definitely helped ease some of the withdrawals I was having after moving to Texas from Idaho.

I've been to El Paso and I can't visualize living there, sorry. Big Bend is nice, but you can't live in the park and the park is the nice part. I remember liking Alpine when we went through there. I spend a lot of my time out hiking in the wilderness, so the upper-class gated community to hunker down in isn't enough, I want lots of nice publicly-owned land to hike. I've been to all of the other places you mention and they all have big drawbacks. I'm allergic to big cities and crowds. I would never move to Colorado Springs today and it's only half a million. The only thing keeping us here now is 40 years of entrenchment and that the climate is decent for year-round living. Not great, but decent.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

I've been to El Paso and I can't visualize living there, sorry. Big Bend is nice, but you can't live in the park and the park is the nice part. I remember liking Alpine when we went through there. I spend a lot of my time out hiking in the wilderness, so the upper-class gated community to hunker down in isn't enough, I want lots of nice publicly-owned land to hike. I've been to all of the other places you mention and they all have big drawbacks. I'm allergic to big cities and crowds. I would never move to Colorado Springs today and it's only half a million. The only thing keeping us here now is 40 years of entrenchment and that the climate is decent for year-round living. Not great, but decent.

Lol no need to be sorry, I couldn’t imagine myself living there either.

Montana/Idaho sounds like your best bet if you can handle the cold. I like the cold weather and the outdoors, so I’ll be moving back to the Northwest.

 

[GordoJay]

Lol no need to be sorry, I couldn’t imagine myself living there either.

Montana/Idaho sounds like your best bet if you can handle the cold. I like the cold weather and the outdoors, so I’ll be moving back to the Northwest.

If push came to shove, I could handle the east side of the Cascades. More sun out there. Bend would work, but it's close to a straight trade from here in nearly every category I can think of but I would pay twice as much in taxes.

Montana or Idaho would be great in the summer. Winter, not so much. Southwestern Utah could work, even though they keep electing that liberal retard Romney and you have to put up with the LDS, but that only gets annoying in the small towns.

I was born in and lived in Southern California until I was 13, where it never gets hot, or cold, or humid, or buggy. Occasionally it rains and occasionally the wind blows, but that's about it. So I got imprinted with that expectation. We've been going to Tucson lately in the winter, but between Covid and an upcoming surgery, we decided to hunker down here and suffer this year. In a good year, Colorado is actually pretty nice in the winter. In a bad year, it sucks for a warm-blooded person like me. But if you're from the Upper Midwest, it's near paradise even in a bad year. So it's all about expectation. I'm hoping for a good winter.

As you can tell, I've put a lot of thought into it. My conclusion is that I need two houses, a summer house and a winter house. We've not found anything enough better than here for year-round living to justify moving. It did occur to me that I could buy a single-wide in Bumble, Texas to use as my permanent residence and then spend the whole year on vacation elsewhere depending on the season. I haven't been able to convince my wife that moving twice a year wouldn't be a PITA. I'm not sure I'm convinced, myself.

 

[desertfox73]

I've been to El Paso and I can't visualize living there, sorry. Big Bend is nice, but you can't live in the park and the park is the nice part. I remember liking Alpine when we went through there. I spend a lot of my time out hiking in the wilderness, so the upper-class gated community to hunker down in isn't enough, I want lots of nice publicly-owned land to hike. I've been to all of the other places you mention and they all have big drawbacks. I'm allergic to big cities and crowds. I would never move to Colorado Springs today and it's only half a million. The only thing keeping us here now is 40 years of entrenchment and that the climate is decent for year-round living. Not great, but decent.

I’ve lived most of my life in Texas (currently in Tennessee) and the Big Bend is really spectacular - that part of the world is perfectly suited to the Raptor. However, Texas has very little public lands, maybe less than any other state. It has designated parks and such, but nothing like the national forests and BLM lands of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, etc.

Edit: Texas is ALMOST at the bottom of the list for public lands. Which is kind of amazing when you consider it’s size. Maybe that’s why Texans keep buying all of Florida and Colorado...there’s nothing left in Texas to buy!
https://www.summitpost.org/public-and-private-land-percentages-by-us-states/186111

 

[SSWIM]

If you come to Colorado just head to the west slope (Grand Junction). You can access many roads\trails and be close to Moab which like was posted above has miles and miles of trials. Vail and Telluride at that time will be grid locked with tourists and wheeling is not an option due to snow (unless 2020 throws us what it has so far lol).

Sam