OUR BEAUTIFUL NEW HOUSE IN COLORADO SPRINGS

Yes, the rumors are true. Julie and I have settled down in Colorado Springs, Colorado. We have spent the last month traveling around the US trying to ascertain what place was right for us and our somewhat shallow roots. Here are our thoughts on the handful of places we visited.

Portland, Oregon: has become too cool for us, people are annoyingly PC, and it is a very politically homogeneous culture. It also rains 9 months out of the year. Port Townsend, Washington: a somewhat hidden gem on the Olympic penninsula. If we were ten years older we would have settled in this beautiful spot. It is located in the "rain shadow" of the Olympic range and gets half as much rain as Seattle.  San Luis Obispo, California: seemed too perfect. How interesting can life be if your surroundings are always at room temperature with a gentle breeze? Also, I'd like to be able to buy a house without resorting to selling cocaine to finance it.  Albuquerque, New Mexico: looks exactly like it's portrayed in the series "Breaking Bad". The town has some pockets of culture, but they are surrounded by bland suburbs or bleak ghettos. Julie had a job waiting for her here which she ended up turning down even though she had no other offers. That sums up Albuquerque. It is a place where you might turn down a job offer in a rough economy because something about the town screams "get out of here" like the preacher in There Will Be Blood. Bozeman, Montana: too small and too familiar. A beautiful place that was an important part of my past, but not my future. Flagstaff, Arizona: the Bozeman of Arizona with a few more shady characters. A decent town to get a flat tire in.

Colorado Springs, Colorado: the little town we didn't see coming. We were only meant to be stopping by on our way to check out Denver. We ended up staying a week and signing a lease on a house. In no particular order, this is what drew us to this place. It is beautiful. The town sits in a valley adjacent to the Rocky Mountains which serve as the backdrop. CS is a largish city that is easy to negotiate and is located only an hour from the big city of Denver should we ever want to attend a baseball game or go to IKEA. You can ride scooters all over CS, and if they are 50cc or less, you can use the bike lanes. Colorado Springs has about 300 sunny days a year, which by my count is nearly every day. CS has a healthy mix of politics, from the hippy wicca suburb of Manitou Springs, to the more conservative military industrial complex. People love to be outside here, and the town is blanketed with running trails and dog parks. It is a very dog friendly town, with a handful of bars that let you bring your dogs. People love to run here, and there are many clubs where people run and then have dinner and drinks together (they call it hashing). There is a mega fundamentalist church here called Focus on the Family, which plays a large roll in giving CS a reputation as a conservative town. From what I gather, this keeps the cool kids away and helps keep housing prices low. A house in the old downtown area where we live goes for around 200K. The same house in Denver would easily go for 300K. There are many areas of CS with old houses with a ton of character. There also seems to be jobs here. And lastly, an old gypsy woman told us that we should settle here.       

THE STRANGEST THING HAPPENED TO ME AT THE ZOO

OK, I made this happen by putting food on my head, but it was still pretty unusual. The giraffes at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo can be hand-fed, and if you are slightly more adventurous, head-fed. I thought my little stunt would create a handful of imitators, but alas no one seemed to find it as entertaining as I did. The zoo is located in Colorado Springs, and is the only mountain zoo in the US, sitting at an elevation of 6800 feet. Oh, and by the way, Julie and I recently relocated to Colorado Springs.

THE BEAUTY OF CATHOLICISM

I think the most beautiful churches in the United States are the Spanish mission churches of New Mexico and California. My two favorites are Santuario de Chimayo in New Mexico and San Miguel Arcangel in California, both of which are pictured above. I never met Jesus, but something tells me he would have favored their simplistic design as opposed to the mega-cathedrals of Europe. It reminds me of that scene in Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade where the holy grail turns out to be the simple wooden one and not the jewel encrusted gold one. 

LAKE TAHOE WAS PRETTY NICE TOO

I don't think I've ever been to a lake that has the coloration of a tropical ocean. I also don't think I've ever been to a lake that I deemed, "too clean to urinate in". The rich folk in Lake Tahoe have a pretty nice body of water to enjoy with their butlers, maids, and for the slightly more progressive, their house boys. For all its aesthetic beauty, alas Lake Tahoe is not a perfect lake. In the middle of the summer it is still too cold to stay in for extended periods of time. On the flip side locals claim you can drink straight from it.

LAKE SHASTA WAS HEAVENLY

Julie and I spent a few days at beautiful Lake Shasta in northern California. Even though the lake was 60 feet low, it was perfect. We rented a little fishing boat and tooled around, stopping every so often to swim. The boat had no ladder or discernible method for re-entry, so Julie and I invented the "beached whale" method, which was ridiculous looking but effective. We have both been overwhelmed by the beauty of America having spent a year in what can only be termed, "The Wasteland". One of the most over the top differences was when we spotted the floating bathroom shown above in the middle of the lake. A lake is for all intensive purposes a giant toilet bowl, yet our government still allotted funds to engineer this floating relief station (actually called the "USS Relief") to keep it pristine. Julie and I saw bald eagles, owls, and not one floating turd in all our time there. Needless to say, the bodies of water near us in China were far from swimmable as raw sewage was pumped directly into them.     

HOW THIS BUILDING CHANGED MY LIFE

I almost didn't make it here. The year was 1996, and I had spent the summer living in Ocean City, New Jersey with my Grandmother. I had been accepted to Montana State but had been dragging my feet about sending in all the paperwork. After two years of community college education, I was pretty sure that higher education was a complete waste of my time. It was about this time that my cousin Scott and his girlfriend came to visit. It was his girlfriend that completed and mailed all my paperwork to enroll me at Montana State. A few weeks later I arrived in Bozeman, MT and learned that the building above, Roskie Hall, was to be my new home. I met some of my best friends in Roskie that first semester. And knowing those friends is what took me out to Jordan to pursue a career in photography thirteen years later. I think everyone should pick colleges based on geography.  

THE BEST SCOOTER FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS CAN BUY

This is my beloved scooter that I illegally drove everyday to work in China (I had no license and it was not registered). I bought it brand new for $500, and ended up putting 7105 kilometers (4415 miles) on it. In all those kilometers I never saw any police officers actively engaged in traffic enforcement. Because of that, people who drove scooters in China disregarded all traffic laws, and I excelled at breaking the law. I ran every traffic light, drove the wrong way on one way streets, and generally drove like an aggressive a-hole. When in China.    

For something made in China, my scooter was remarkably reliable. It started right up everyday even in the winter and after sitting for a month while we were in Bali. It cost $5 to fill up the tank with gas. Driving it around was one of my favorite things in China. I will miss driving like an a-hole.