Hell Week

Hell is relative. No deaths. It was just a very stressful week as Wednesday was a deadline to do the deal for the Sugarloaf house. I was divided

On one hand it is at 8,000 feet with perfect views of snow-capped 14,000 foot mountains. The house is perfect - over 4,500 feet with a barn on 9 acres. It is only 19 minutes to downtown Boulder - pretty good

On the other hand 2011 has conditions where folks are saying it could be "historic" for wild-fires as the area is in a "severe" drought. That and being in the National Forest means we are closer to legal hunting than I would prefer

Tuesday we went to drive by a few other homes and spend some time at Sugarloaf just hanging out

The first home is likely $100,000 too expensive but is just 10 minutes from downtown Boulder. It has it's own tennis court which is cool



The next two homes were in Longmont, which is in Boulder County - a large town surrounded by vast agricultural areas







The green house is the final house we looked at:



Saw a donkey so pulled over to take his pic - he ran away





It turned out to not be such a good day to "hang out" in Sugarloaf. 31 and frozen fog





So the hell part

First was the self-imposed stress of "buy / not buy" (we have let it go - for now)

Wednesday I quit AT&T (more or less) - glad my boss ignore me when I periodically do this

Thursday we found out that our Ford Explorer needs a new transmission - $4,000! It is a 2001 with 125,000 miles; we had expected another 30,000-40,000 miles. We thought about buying a new car - since my beloved Subaru with it's less-than-powerful engine isn't terribly practical for mountain living

We finally decided the best thing to do was for Maureen to fly back to Redmond (today) and drive the Subaru 1,400 miles back to Denver

Hudson and I will be hitting the Canadian whiskey about 4:30pm - we bought the NHL cable package so I could watch the playoffs and it's been many months since I've watched Hockey Night in Canada...

House Update and Visit to Fourmile Canyon

Last weekend's half-marathon was a success - 1:49:40, a personal best



We've driven by maybe 30 houses and been inside 15. Here is a pic from a home we visited in Longmont



Long's Peak



Cows



Today we visited Pine Brook for likely the last time. I liked the house and the views were excellent (this was just through the trees as we were driving by homes, not going in). It was just above Wonderland...but Maureen wasn't thrilled with the one lane road with sharp drop-offs



Deer on the way out



Wonderland trails below the Pine Brook house. We were on our way to Boulder Heights



Horses are always here along Lee Hill Road



We drove by our old friend Jerry's house in Boulder Heights. You can't really see but his dog is on the porch



The Flatirons



This house was hard to see from below but looked nice. Expensively listed at $869K but it is just off Sunshine Canyon



We looked at another home up Sunshine Canyon but we couldn't see from the road. It was definitely surrounded by acres of burned land (and the neighbour's home burned)

On the way down Sunshine we saw this house - we would see this from our home on CR-83



The fire started just off Fourmile Canyon but for a few reason it doesn't look as bad as Sunshine Canyon. I'm sure it does on roads just off Fourmile. Fourmile has a lot of mining history - including "towns" such as Crisman and Wallstreet







The "James F. Bailey Assay Office Museum" - Assayer's it seems assessed the quality of what prospector's found. I'm not sure there is any historical significance to the German Shepherd







The Wallstreet Gold Extraction Company's Mill. The reason we went up Fourmile





Next we went to the "town" of Salina - another cool looking small community that was once a major mining area. Here was The Little Church in the Pines that survived. These communities around Fourmile were even more bizarre as far as a small cluster of homes and only one would be gone





Lastly we went for a run up on the Switzerland Trail near the Sugarloaf house. We actually made an offer last weekend. It was listed for $740K and we offered $675K. They countered at $720K and we declined. The next day they came back again at $700K. Before we could respond they simply accepted $675K with a few minor changes. Not sure what we'll do...we didn't expect acceptance

Animals and More House Hunting

I used our other camera this week and found this pic from the fall - Quandary Peak from our house outside of Breckenridge (well, the house we rented for 50 nights)



Earlier this week I heard rustling while out back

Baby snakes

Not a huge fan of snakes but they all seemed to scatter after being born. Good luck



I took Friday off from the sweatshop that is AT&T. It has been pretty intense all year and life is made more difficult because I can't stay connected for too long to the internet. I don't feel like calling our useless IT "Support" in India so I live with it.

We were going to run around Denver. It had snowed the night before and somehow this guy made it in our fenced backyard for breakfast (I guess he jumped it)





Today we went to Boulder to drive by 7 houses. Actually, 5 are in Longmont, 1 in Lafayette and 1 in Boulder. I was mellow as I did my final long run before next Sunday's half-marathon - 13.8-miles in 2 hours and 7 minutes. Last week I did 31-miles, so should be all set as the Colorado race season begins

Here is a donkey on the way to the first one, less than a mile away



And here is a fire on the way. I assumed it was a controlled burn of some sorts



The house itself. We'll go back Sunday with our realtor



The view. I think this is Long's Peak



The neighbours...



These two look very nice but are off the list for a variety of reasons





More views while driving around



The next house looked good. It's unique. Hard to tell from the photos but it is built into the hillside. The garage looks like it is 90% underground





The view looks east which is a drag (the mountains are west) but still nice and 15 minutes to downtown Boulder



Another odd thing is it borders the US Government's 2.5-mile x 1.5-mile "Table Mountain Field Site and Radio Quiet Zone"

http://www.its.bldrdoc.gov/table_mountain/index.html



And here would be our other neighbours...





We then went back to Boulder's Pine Brook neighbourhood - minutes to North Boulder. This was the only pic we took (we were in the car) - it looks over a reservoir



The final house we looked at was maybe 9-miles east of Boulder in Lafayette. We cruised around Boulder first as it was such an awesome day. And not raining. HAHAHA



The house is odd. It is on 7 acres with these views:



But...it seems that suburban sprawl has crept close (see behind in this fuzzy photo)



I'm sure tomorrow will be fun. We've also found a few cool looking homes in West Denver just south of Cherry Creek in our price range so we may check them out next week