Lots of Changes for the Kruse's

There have been lots of things going on over the last few months.  Jeff lost his job at Honeywell (which he hated) in September I think?  They had sent him to Redmond for 6 weeks and when he got home started yet another (twice yearly tradition I guess) round of layoffs and his number was up. This kind of sucked at the time since we had no intentions of leaving New Mexico for another few years and there really aren't any decent jobs in New Mexico. None the less he went on some interviews and pretty much exhausted all New Mexico options.  Any thing I could get wouldn't have benefits or pay well enough for us to stay so we started thinking of options of where to go.

Once you have lived on the West Coast you really can not be anywhere else.  It is almost like a whole other country.  I grew up in California then moved to Washington State which at the time seemed a little backwards.  The west coast is so much more progressive than the rest of the country any where is a step back.  If we had gone to NM straight from Washington we would not have been happy but since we were coming from Puerto Rico it was a step up. I met Jeff and we lived in Washington for over 20 years before the weather got to me.  Traffic got so bad that I didn't want to go diving any more since it took longer one way to get to the dive site than it did to do the dive.  As options of where to go next we narrowed our choices down to the part of Nevada closest to California, Tucson Arizona, Colorado or Eastern Washington. Turns out there was a job involving batteries and space in Colorado that was perfect for him, he applied, got an interview, we drove up for the interview and he got the job!

That is when reality struck. Reality hit fast when he had to start the job in three weeks.  We put the house on the market.  He had to go up to start the job and did the AirB&B thing for a couple months while trying to find a rental.  The number one priority was for us to keep the cats and chickens.  Eventually we will probably buy a house but the prices are crazy-high here (maybe it is the legal weed?)  Prices are even higher than Seattle area houses I think and definitely much more than in NM. We didn't think we would find somewhere that would let us have the chickens so I arranged to "board" them at the Lyons Farmette which is close enough to Longmont where we would probably end up renting.  On Jeff's way to meet the owners and introduce himself he saw a FOR RENT sign which ended up being the place we rented! We could have all three cats AND the chickens!

So here we are in Lyons, Colorado...on the route to Rocky Mountain National Park in the Front Range of the Rockies. The town reminds me a lot of Duvall, Washington in its size and arrangement but it has a lot more progressive stuff going on.  It is noisy - mainly cars and the river noise (anything would be after Placitas NM) but the trade off is we can walk everywhere, are close to lots of parks, are renting on a kayakable river (getting out at our house will be great), are close to organic locally sourced food and restaurants that serve it and have a surprising amount of wonderful food choices a lot of which are vegetarian and vegan. There will be a lot of folk and blues festivals in the summer which might be nice too.   Boulder Colorado is a half hour to 40 minutes away and EVERYTHING is there.  If we could afford it that would be THE place to be. More on that later after we head that way this weekend! For now here are some animal photos from "out the door" (in the house looking out the window). We had never seen a black squirrel before...it is wonderful to have trees, green, water and mammals! We even have a couple "Squirt" rabbits.