The Move to Colorado

As you already know, if you have been reading my blog since day one (actually I think it was day two), back in 1984, I was living in a mobile home with my best friend Brenda. I was working in the deli at Nelson’s super market and she was working at Hardee’s.

July 28, she came home from work late and woke me up. “We have got to get out of Tomahawk. Let’s just up and move somewhere.”

So I dragged myself out of bed, threw a pizza in the oven and pulled out the atlas. We made a list of places we thought would be cool to live in and mailed letters to their chambers of commerce asking for information. This was 1984, way before the internet was in everybody’s home. The place that came out the winner was Castle Rock, Colorado.

We packed up Brenda’s blue Nova the end of August and drove 1200 miles to a place we had never been before. We arrived around one o’clock on a Friday afternoon, checked into a hotel, and by noon the next day, we each had a job. Brenda at the McDonald’s, me at Daylight Donuts.

By the end of the first week, we were renting a two bedroom apartment within walking distance to both our jobs. Within a month or so, I got a second job working two evenings a night at the 7-Eleven directly across the street from our apartment.

We were just two chicks from the sticks, having never been anywhere by ourselves. We drove all over the place in Brenda’s old car. We discovered lots of places to shop in both Denver and Colorado Springs. We also discovered some positively scary gravel roads going up and down the sides of the mountains.

And when we weren’t driving around, we were walking around Castle Rock. The city gets its name from a huge rock formation sitting on top of a hill next to town. The rock was shaped, I thought, more like a ship, but someone way back when must have thought it looked like a castle. There was a trail to the top from which there was a magnificent view of the Rockies.

The problem with moving so far from home is that all of my major trips for nearly the next decade revolved around either going home to Wisconsin or back to Colorado. I think though that I can find a few vacations in those nine years that will hold your interest.

Mom, Dad and Mac the first time they came out to visit me.