Train Rides

     One of the perks we receive with our apartment is a pass on the Denver area light rail and bus system.  Our building is located next to the Lincoln station of the light rail. We have already ridden the train two days.

    Our first trip was short--to the Park Meadows station where we walked around the shopping mall.  Today, we rode to Union Station and did some exploring in downtown Denver.

    On the way, we passed this Burlington Northern Santa Fe hopper car that has been beautifully decorated by some tag artist.  While I don't condone tagging, or really appreciate that art form, I did like this drawing.

        In LowDo (Lower Downtown), we saw this interesting sign.  I'm not sure what it is advertising.

    We saw these buffalo along the 16th Street Mall.  Of course the buffalo is the mascot of the University of Colorado, our alma mater.

    Some of the old building in downtown Denver are really beautiful.

    We saw lots of pretty flower pots.

 

    And this is Union Station, a train station (real trains, both passenger and freight) and hub for bus and light rail travel.

    The Union Station interior is beautiful

    We haven't spent quality time exploring the city of Denver for years.  I lived here for most of my life before we were married and we spent years living around the area.  Before we went on the road full-time in our RV, we lived and worked here.  John served churches in the Denver area.  For several years, we volunteered at the Colorado Historical Museum.  What will we find to do during our summers here in the future? 

Lifestyle Changes

I think I am very organized, I like to plan, and I know how to get things done--even if I don't have much time to get it done.  But right now, I have lots to do and even more time to get it done.  That is harder than being in a hurry, it seems.  We have decided that it is time to start slowing down, traveling less.  For years we traveled during the summer and spent out winters in Colorado.  Then, we started spending our winters in Arizona, as well as several of the warmer months.  

In 2009, we decided to rent the house and travel year round.  Move forward to 2014 and we bought a small house in Arizona for the winter months.

Now, another change.  Considering our age--we are both 78--we really think it makes sense to stop traveling all over the country each summer.  We have rented an apartment in a suburb of Denver and will move in mid-August.  Since we will still be using the Arizona house, we need furniture in Denver.  And dishes. And pots and pans.  And sheets and towels.  So, on and on it goes.

In addition to these issues, there isn't a good place to park our Airstream at the apartment.  We will be making a run to Arizona to park the trailer there.  We could just use the pots,  pans, etc. from the RV in the apartment, but I learned years ago having to use the same housewares in both the house and RV is too much work.  We want to just carry our clothes and electronics--computers, ipads, etc. with us as we move between the two houses. 

Thank goodness our son Eric lives in Littleton.  Instead of renting a storage unit to keep the furniture and housewares, etc., until we can move in, we are filling up his garage for a month or more.

 All of this is a major change in our lifestyle.  We started looking into this last summer and hoped to buy a condo or townhouse in the Denver area.  We didn't find anything so we stopped looking.   But, as the news headlines keep reminding us, real estate prices are going through the roof.  So buying doesn't look like a good idea.  That is why we decided to find an apartment to rent.

We will spend the next year experiencing the changes and deciding if this is the right decision for us.  At least, if we decide this isn't what we want or need, we won't have a condo to sell, just the furniture and housewares!

This blog is a cross between a scrapbook and a journal.  I  will be writing about the lifestyle change and our reactions to it.  Maybe by the end of the year, it will be clear how we will live the next few years.  Many of the people we got to know--or at least watched on the internet--are no longer RVing full-time.  They have bought homes to live in part of the year or given up their RVs for good.  

We don't know where we will end up until we try this.  What will we choose when we are both 79 years old?