The Places I've Been: CO

Denver, Colorado is my current "home". I've lived here since July 5, 2002. But lets go back in time to when I very first visited Colorado. I believe my first trip was a family trip on a train to Ouray, CO. I think I was in middle school. It was beautiful. I remember really enjoying the train and atmosphere. I remember seeing the waterfall that is (or was at that time) on Coors Beer cans.

My second time to Colorado was specifically to Denver. I flew here Spring Break of 2000 (I believe) to meet a boy I had been chatting with on AOL. Crazy, I know, but it was fun.

My third time here was in May 2001 (I believe). My friend Sarah called me up at 10pm one night, asking if I wanted to go on a road trip the next day to Colorado. I said, "Heck yeah!" This was probably one of the funniest trips I have ever been on. It was last minute, and oh so much fun. We stayed at a hotel, went out drinking, and spent the night dancing! That was my first experience with Denver nightlife.

My fourth, fifth, sixth, and probably seventh trip to Denver was 2001 up until I moved here in July 2002. And now comes the story of why I moved to Denver. When people ask me this question, I ask "do you want the short story, or the long story?"

Short story: It was close to home, but away from home.

Long story: Back when I was 21 my everyday friend was Shaun. ...you know, the friend you spend time with every single day, who just gets you, who you can talk to about everything, or just sit and play rummy for forever. Well that was Shaun. We were 21 at the same time, so that also meant going out drinking every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night. ....these times were so much fun! I worked full time, and I really don't remember working! We would go out all the time, and there were nights I slept on his couch, and nights I wouldn't get home until 5 in the morning. Anyways, Shaun has a brother Jason who he is extremely close to. Jason and his wife Rachel live in Denver. When Shaun and I first started hanging out, it was always "Denver this, Denver that. Denver is SO much better than Albuquerque. April lets move to Denver." Point being, Shaun always talked about moving here. I didn't really think much about it. I had never really thought about moving away from Albuquerque, but it was known that when/if Shaun moved up to Denver I could follow him. Our conversations about Denver were always a lot more serious when Jason was visiting Albuquerque, or if we were visiting Denver because of Shaun's close relationship with his brother and wanting to be near him. Well back at the beginning of June 2002 Jason and Rachel were in Albuquerque to go to a friends wedding. While Shaun and I were driving back from this wedding, we had another one of our "serious" conversations about moving to Denver. Shaun made the point that now was a perfect time for me because I was unemployed (I had just quit my job.) and could easily find a job in Denver. I figured I had nothing to lose. The jobs I was applying for in Albuquerque were not good jobs, so that night I went onto monster.com to see what the Denver market was like. I ended up applying for a handful of jobs. A few days later I set up a job interview in Denver, and did my first drive up all by myself. While I was here (Denver) I applied for a few more jobs, and checked out some apartments. Back in Albuquerque I got an offer letter on the job I came up for the job that I had interviewed for. It was a job with Safeway Select Bank(a company that went out of a business 4 months after I moved). It was official I was moving! Everything happened so fast that I didn't have a chance to really thing about it, and whether or not this was what I really wanted. I just went with the flow and did it. I figured since everything was falling into place so easily and so quickly, it was meant to be. The whole process took exactly 1 month. I moved up here with nothing. The only piece of furniture I had was an old entertainment center Shaun had gotten from his cousin's garage sell. Once I moved my mom bought me a bed and my dad bought me a chest of drawers. 7 years later I have well furnished house, and Shaun?, well he still lives in Albuquerque.