There are two questions asked whenever we give the 'vagabonding' spiel to strangers. The first is always, and I mean always, "Do you have an RV?". Then, we have to explain how we manage to travel around with all our stuff without having a recreational vehicle to live in. I find this question ridiculous, actually, because I've been in RV's, and I've yet to see one which has more than a teaspoon of storage. I mean, let's just talk clothes: The closet in a typical travel trailer is 20" wide, and the drawer space is about the size of two small bedside table drawers. On this trip ALONE we took three seasons of clothes! I'm not even going to talk about RV kitchen storage. The second question is, "How do you pick the places you go?" and the third is, "What's your favorite place?". It never varies.
Our initial pick for our six month vagabonding is always about what is there to see. The second and sometimes third place in our six month travels all flow from the initial pick. So.... This year we picked the odyssey trip across Canada from Newfoundland to Banff. Our second destination, Colorado, was based on the end place, Banff. If you unfurl your low tech paper map, or check your hi tech Google Map, you'll discover Colorado is almost directly south of Banff. We've drifted slightly southeastward, but absolutely directly south of Banff is Utah, and we've been there. It was easy to settle on Colorado; we've talked about it as a primary destination before.
Picking an actual place to rent is much more difficult. It is a combination process of looking at places which will have short term rentals combined with things to do and see. We also have to decide furnished or unfurnished. (This trip was all about furnished rentals.) For instance, I didn't really ever look at Denver, even though I knew there would be short term furnished rentals, because we live in a big city for half the year already. When we are out of Phoenix, it's all about scenery, scenery, scenery unless we are headed for the Big Apple or a family event. Colorado was also a natural for one of my big go to rentals: ski condos. I discovered when we went to New Hampshire in 2011 people line up to rent you their ski condo between Labor Day and before the heavy snow flies. Nobody rents one of these places once the kiddos go back to school, and the skiers are certainly not interested. Thus, when this ski condo popped up in Fraser, Colorado, with a great price as well as a heated pool and a fitness facility as part of the package, it was a no-brainer. The added attraction was the closeness to Rocky Mountain National Park.
What I didn't exactly understand is how isolated this town is and how high it is. We sit at 8550 feet in elevation. That's enough to have you panting after you climb 14 steps. Drake is still not able to do his typical eliptical workout. This is a high, high mountain valley surrounded by mountains that are even higher. To get back to Arizona the direct way, we have to climb over an 11,000 foot pass. You'd better believe we'll be watching the weather like hawks from mid October. Oh, it's gorgeous.
I'm looking at golden aspens and mountains right outside my deck patio door. There's wonderful hiking within easy drives, and we've certainly taken advantage of several of them. There's actually a 'movie theater' which offers two or three first run films each week. It's actually a combo facility of movie theater and bowling alley, but it's here. There are a surprising number of really wonderful restaurants because of the upscale Winterpark ski resort four miles down the road. I made sure there was a real grocery store easily accessible before I even considered renting this place.
What I didn't think about were box stores within a 30 mile radius. There are none. There's no drugstore beyond the Safeway pharmacy. There's no Target, Walmart, K-Mart, Kohl's, Family Dollar, or Dollar General much less a 'mall' with Dillards, Sears, Penny's, etc. There are a few boutique stores in Winterpark selling ski apparel or souvenir t-shirts, but there's no place to buy underwear. The closest box stores are on the western side of the Denver metroplex, and that's a minimum of an hour away because of the mountain driving.
Initially, I thought, "Oh, no problem. I shop on the Internet anyway." What I didn't anticipate is there's no mail delivery in all of Fraser. Everybody has to go to the post office and get their mail either via a post office box or 'General Delivery'. Since post office box rental is a six month minimum, we get our mail here General Delivery. Drew, the Postmaster of Fraser, Colorado, and I are now on a first name basis since I get a stream of letters and packages. Still, not really a deal breaker. Everything in this town is within a 2 mile radius. There are 1170 residents receiving mail counting Drake and I.
I didn't anticipate going to war with UPS. Here's a little known fact: Savy internet sellers sell you the item, then pick the shipper without notifying you before you buy. Depending on where an item is being shipped, and what it is, dictates whether the item goes USPS, UPS or FedEx. No problem, right? Wrong. Did you know UPS will not deliver to your local post office EVEN when there's no mail delivery in the town? Then, when the UPS package is 'undeliverable', according to them, their system will not let you correct to your physical address for delivery. A UPS help desk clerk hung up on me last week when I refused to accept their system and kept pressing as to why they wouldn't deliver my package to an obvious address (Fraser Post Office), and no, I didn't use a single word of profanity. UPS lost one package, and only after our local driver intervened was it found, and he also managed to snag a second package out of their system and deliver it too. Way, way too much drama.
I've come to the conclusion the due diligence of my selection criteria has to improve. That's business speak for I have to be wary about living, even temporarily, in towns which are too small. Our society is so urban now I expect to have access to certain levels of service. We all do. I don't think it's the weather which drives people away from a town or area; it's the isolation from services. I'm not talking just about stores. It's about health care, dental services, vision services, car repair, pharmacy services, internet availability, appliance repair, and a myriad of other things we take for granted. Since my UPS tiff, I've begun to query people I run into about why they live here. Of course, one of the answers is, "I've always lived here." Another is, "I like to ski, (hike) (bike) (camp)", but another answer which keeps popping up is, "I like the solitude." OK. Yes, theoretically, I get that, but practically? Nope.
I'll be in Fraser for six more weeks. Feel free to send me anything (like my birthday cards) to Jan Smith, General Delivery, Fraser, Colorado 80442. Just don't try to use UPS; they don't admit the post office building exists. While here, though, I'm concentrating on staying healthy and enjoying the natural beauty.
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| Jan on the top of one of the ski mountains |
If you want to enjoy more of my pix of the golden aspens, click on the link:
https://goo.gl/photos/jLNf6PdotJ7LQVKg6
