Colorado

My home state.  More specifically Boulder, Colorado.  Jack is doing a state report on Colorado so I have been helping him quite a bit.  I have very fond memories of Colorado in different phases of my life.  

Loved my early childhood there.  We lived in the mountains, sunshine canyon, and my sisters and I played outside all day long (in the summer).  We rarely brushed our hair and didn't really care how we were dressed.  Our home was very small (one room for 4 girls until our brother was born and we had to move) but it was full of love - hippie love to be more specific.  I remember walking down the long hill with my father to the pump house to turn the water pump on.  I remember playing on the hand made swings my father built.  I remember the long drive into town so we could go to the laundry mat and maybe if we were really, really lucky we would have a donut from the donut store next door.  I remember John Denver and the sounds of train whistles playing from our record player.  I remember the one big party we had at that house for the 4th of July, 1976.

I had a bit of a rude awakening once we move into town and changed schools, I was in 4th grade.  The new school had some tough kids, I heard language I had never heard before (bad) and I learned that kids could be really mean.  I started to grow up.   Junior high and high school were pretty brutal with much drama and hormones and thinking I must know more than anyone else.  There were 8 kids now in our family and even though my Mom was sick at the age of 20 I moved away to Hawaii.

A year later Colorado was calling me and I moved back but this time with John.  We had a great time hanging out on the Pearl Street Mall and decorating our sparse apartment.  Hiking up Mount Sanitas.   Learning how to rock climb and finding delicious food.  Feeling like adults. We moved 3 times while living in Boulder before we moved again but this time to San Francisco.

After 2 years Colorado called again and after we were married John accepted a job back in Denver.  This time we were able to buy a nice house - our first real home.  We settled in and started making our family.  Jack was born in Littleton and our little family of 3 was very happy there.    But opportunity knocked on John's career door and we moved back to California.  

Eventually we were brought to where we live now.  This is my home.   It will always be my home.  A place that we love where the weather is mild, the views are amazing and the people are practically perfect.  I love Colorado too,  many wonderful and crazy things happened to me there.  I grew up  there.  But Colorado changed and so did I.  So goodbye rocky mountain high.