Our house had been on the marketing since early June.  We haven’t had any showings since early August, and then in September, we’re here not 2 weeks, and the bottom drops out of the economy.

Before we left to come here, there were only 3 houses for sale in our subdivision. Now, there are 10.. out of only 150 homes.

Some are asking $30K – $40K below our asking price.

In our entire zip code of only 12,000 (or so) single family residences, there are nearly 850 for sale and only 2 have sold since early August.

I have no idea how many of those are foreclosures, but the reality is that we just can’t compete with that many homes for sale in our neighborhood.

We can’t buy a house, here, until our house there sells and with Wisconsin winter just around the corner, it’s not looking good.  There just isn’t anybody out and about house-hunting in the middle of winter in WI.

We don’t want to live in limbo indefinitely and it could take another 2 years before real estate stabilizes and the chances now of getting a qualified buyer are slim given the credit squeeze.

The situation in Colorado Springs isn’t much different.  There are so many homes here for sale, it’s ridiculous… and now, what we’re seeing is that because people can’t sell them, they’re trying to rent them.  Getting qualified renters isn’t any easier than getting a qualified buyer.

Renting our house is not something we want to do.  I don’t want to be a landlord locally, much less long distance.

So, we are going to cut our losses while they are short term rather than digging them deeper.  Financially, it is smartest thing we can do right now, to go back and live in our home.

Will we come back after all this settles out?  Not until Emily graduates high school or college (depending on where she goes)  I’m not going to uproot her again.

Doug and I figure in 10 years, she’ll be graduating high school and off to college.  So, at that time, he and I can come back and live up in the mountains in Breckenridge.

Thank goodness for having a virtual business!

They have a 20 ft indoor rock wall, with 4 different sides.. 4 different degrees of difficulty.  Tim, the climbing guy, as we call him, was there helping some kids and others in front of us.

Emily, at first, didn’t want to go, but then!  She saw this 5 year old little boy do the climb, so she decided, “well, if he can do it, so can I”  Way to go, Emily.

She harnessed up, and Tim taught her the lingo.  “On Belay”, which means that you are on the harness.

Once you’re ready to climb, then you say, “Climbing”  Very educational, indeed, for us traditional non-climbers.

Anyway, Emily made it a little more than half way up.  Tim, very good with kids, had her go about 3 or 4 climbs, challenging her just a little further each time until she went 3/4 of the way up.

She had a blast.

So much so, that the next day, she wanted to go back!  So, we took her back to REI and while Tim wasn’t there, Donna, another REI employee was just as great.

She really challenged Emily, albeit in kid-friendly terms, but just enough so that Emily really challenged herself and get this.  She made it all the way to the top and rang the bell…. Twenty foot rock wall accomplished !

Way to go Emily!

Over the years, we’ve skied in Vail, Beaver Creek, Keystone, Copper, Winter Park and Breckenridge and I have to say, Breckenridge is my absolute favorite place.  It’s not just a ski resort but quite an active town, too!  Out of all the resorts, it has the largest residential population, which means it is just as beautiful during the off season with lots of fun shops, restaurants and stuff to do.

Here’s what I mean.

The drive up to Pike’s Peak started out great, like any other drive through the mountains, except when we got to tree line. It was a view I never expected. It was a drop-off like I never expected. Talk about narrow, winding roads.

It’s not like we’ve never been to the mountains before. We’ve driven up through the mountain passes to Breckenridge, Vail and Beaver Creek quite a few times. I am not usually afraid of heights, either. I’ve been to the top of the World Trade Center, Empire State Building, Sears Tower and Eiffel Tower.

Today, however, I was a wimp.

When we started heading up, the rangers told us that the wind gusts were about 25-30 mph at the summit, which, when you’re here in the foothills, isn’t a big deal. It is a big deal, though, when you’re headed to 14,110 feet above sea level… to the top of Pike’s Peak.

We got to about a mile from the summit and not only was it steep, the road was extremely narrow. Doug was driving our Nissan Pathfinder, in 4 wheel drive with mini-vans and pick-up trucks driving by, when a Corvette zoomed by. I thought he, (the corvette driver, not my husband) was crazy.

It’s one thing when you’re the one driving. It’s another thing, however, when you’re in the passenger seat and you’re looking out the car window with about 24 inches between you and edge of the cliff to the earth below…. way below… like 12,000 feet below, no guard rail, above tree line.

Yes, today, I was a wimp. About a mile from the top, we turned around. Coming down wasn’t much better, especially when we saw the sign that said, “Hot Brakes Fail”. That was reassuring.. not! We got to the reservoirs and then we knew we were about halfway down, which is where most of the pictures in this slide show were taken from.

We stopped at the break checkpoint and the gift shop was your typical tourist gift shop. I saw a t-shirt that said, “I survived the drive”, so I asked the shop clerk if he had one that said, “I chickened out” (LOL)

Then! Come to find out that they actually have races up there. Races? Are you kidding me? We were watching a video and it’s called “Race to the Clouds” These drivers were doing these turns nearing 100 mph. I really need to get up to speed.. (no pun intended).

Our original plan was to spend the day up in Breckenridge. We nixed that idea when we found out that the upper elevations are under a winter storm warning and expecting up 2 feet of snow. We’ll save that for maybe next weekend.

I still want to go to the summit of Pike’s Peak. From what I’ve seen, the views are absolutely breath-taking, although I think next time, we’ll take the Pike’s Peak cog train instead.

In the meantime, enjoy the slide show of the fall color from Pike’s Peak. It really is so beautiful here.

Garden of the Gods is an absolute “must-see” if you ever get out this way, which of course, we hope you do.  It is like nothing you’ve ever seen before.

The views are absolutely breathtaking and with every turn, there’s something new to see.

The last time we were there, (last week) we picked up a trail map at the visitor’s center and are making it a goal that each time we go, we’ll be hiking a different trail.

As time goes on, the goal is to complete all the trails in Garden of the Gods.

Emily had a blast and I think we wore out the dog.  While the weather was very warm, thank goodness for no humidity!  If it were humid, we would have been miserable.

Ahh.. Colorado Springs, 300 days of sunshine per year and no humidity.  You can’t ask for much more.

We were done by 10 a.m, so Doug, Emily and I were going to go to America the Beautiful park near downtown Colorado Springs. We had a map, we googled it and you would have thought it would have been easy to find.

Somehow we missed it, so we parked the car and walked around downtown Colorado Springs instead.

What a neat downtown! Keep in mind, this isn’t Denver, this is Colorado Springs. For a Saturday, there were a lot of people walking around and just enjoying the day. I was impressed with the eateries with outdoor sidewalk dining, too. What fun!

We stopped in the Mountain Chalet. If you are a mountain climber or love to hike or camp, this is THE store for you. We could have spent the entire day in there.

Mrs. Fields cookies was just down the street, so we had to stop in and get a cookie. Bill, the owner, couldn’t have been nicer!

A trip up to Whole Foods for our typical grocery shopping finished the day. It was nice and relaxing… just the way we like it.

Breckenridge opens November 7th, just a little over a month from now. I know we’ll be going up at some point, and I doubt if we’re going to get season passes for this year, although definitely next year.

We were in REI last week, and ColoradoPass.com was there selling season passes. Before we buy passes, though, we’ll be starting our Colorado adventure.

Today marks two weeks that we’ve been here, so let’s go back in time just a bit.

As you cross the border from Nebraska into Colorado, you think, “O.K. Cool, not too much longer, right?”

Wrong.

When you’re following a UHaul carrying an auto-transport, it’s not like you can do 80 MPH on the highway.

I guess I never realized how much further south Colorado Springs is from Denver. I knew it was 70 miles, but I didn’t realize it was considered “southern Colorado” We didn’t go into Denver, though, or that would have been a long way here, we drove around Denver and I have to tell you, there’s not much going on on the eastern side of Colorado on the way down.

Lots of farmland and ranches, spotted with a small town here and there, and that’s about it.

It was about 5 hours to get from the Nebraska border down to Colorado Springs. I knew we were getting closer once we started seeing the foothills of Pike’s Peak.

We arrived at the apartment complex about 1:00 or so in the afternoon, filled out all the paperwork and got our key. Emily calls it a “hotel” since they have a clubhouse with a fitness center and pool. She’s so cute! If it helps her adjust, then she can call it a hotel.

When you think about it, it’s almost like a large extended stay hotel. There’s a living room, dining area, kitchen, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and fireplace.



Manitou Springs is located just to the south and a little bit west of Colorado Springs. It was kind of funny, in a way, because we saw a lot of tourists and were thinking, “Well, I guess we can’t call ourselves tourists any more because we just moved here!”

We stopped in the cutest little chocolate / ice cream store, Pike’s Peak Chocolate and had the best homemade rocky road ice cream. Yum! We also stopped in a bath / body shop, Salus, featuring local, organic products who was just featured in the August issue of Entrepreneur Magazine. Congratulations, Salus!

In looking back up towards Pike’s Peak, the view was breathtaking.

The weather was great to drive, no rain, no wind, clear skies.  So, we got up early, loaded up the truck and moved to Colorado.. Springs that is.. Pike’s Peak, lots of skiing, blue skies.

I’ve never been to Iowa and never been to Nebraska and you don’t really realize how big of a country we live in until you drive through some of these states.

Nebraska is one big state.  We drove for 14 hours on Tuesday and were going to stop in Kierney, NE, which would give us about only 7 hours of driving the next day.  That seemed very doable.

We got to Kierney about 8 p.m. and wow, there sure were a lot of cars in the hotel parking lots.  Apparently, there was a Nebraska Corn Husker festival going on and hotels were booked for miles.. literally.  We had to drive another 100 miles that night just to be able to get the last two rooms at a Roadway Inn.

Wow.. that was a long day.