[jeaniesa]

It sure was hard to choose the photos I wanted to share with all of you. Unfortunately, I don't think my photos truly do justice to the beautiful area I live in. I'm located just outside of Fort Collins, CO in the first tier of the Rocky Mountain foothills.

1. A photo of our house. It looks like we don't have any neighbors, but in fact we've got close neighbors on both sides. To make up for it, we have a wonderful "hogback" (as we call it) for our backyard. Our kitchen window looks out over the length of the red cliffs up above the house. I just LOVE the view!

2. A view of our "neighborhood" after hiking up the service road in the county park that's across the street from us. The red arrow is pointing to where our house is located in the grand scheme of things. The photo looks east. Behind the hills and below the horizon is Fort Collins.

3. The view north, up the valley from the entrance to the county park. I go hiking up in the park about 5 times a week.

4. A view of Horsetooth Reservoir which lies behind the cliff of red rocks behind our house. This is a view from the other side of the reservoir. We cannot see this from our house, but have this view whenever we drive into town. The reservoir is really low right now because lots of work needs to be done on the dams. They expect it will be low for another 2-4 years. There used to be an old mining town in the area where the reservoir is now and with it this low, I can walk in the main channel and find old stone foundations. Pretty cool!

5. An hour away is Rocky Mountain National Park. This is a photo I took a few weeks ago up at Cub Lake.

6. I couldn't leave out our two cats - Kira and Luna, otherwise known as "the chaos sisters".

Enjoy! -Jeanie

[Ed_L]

Jeanie,

That's really beautiful country! I can understand why you might hike 5 times per week. We were at Rocky Mountain Nat'l. Park several years ago, and the scenery is breathtaking. You're a lucky gal to live somewhere like that. Have you been there very long? I was under the impression that when people have lived in an area like that for a length of time, they didn't appreciate it as much as others might. But it sounds as though you don't take it for granted. Do you have any snow yet?

Ed

[jeaniesa]

Ed, I've been in Fort Collins 13 years - 6 years at this house. I have vowed to never take it for granted. This area is growing so fast and we're losing so much open space to new developements, it's scary. Living next to a county park ensure that "my" open space won't get developed, but that's not true for most of the area.

No snow yet, but Halloween is coming up fast! We have had a snow storm on Halloween night for 10 of the past 13 years, I think! We have had a couple of dustings here in the past three weeks, but I don't count that as "snow". Just heard a forecast however that says the mountains will be getting socked pretty hard today.

Jeanie

[DJ Dubovsky]

Colorado was always on my list of beautiful states I want to visit along with Alaska. Now after seeing those breath taking pictures you showed us I know why. What a wonderful place to call home. I'm jealous. Love the picture of the cats too. I had 2 cats for 17 years and I know what comical characters they can be.

I know how you feel with all the growth eating up the beauty around you. Same here in Florida. We chose to build on an area where a major park is too for that reason but I see South Florida becoming one coast to coast big city. I miss the wide open spaces.
DJ

[thomasgeorge]

Beautiful location. Looks similar to what we call up here the East front of the Rockies. Nice cats, too!! Tom

[Chris W.]

Oh Jeanie,

I do miss those rocky mountains.

There's small hills here but nothing at all like the mountains in Colorado.

Can't wait till I go back to visit family again so I can take some more pics.

Love the house and cats...you selected a great mix of pictures.

[kathleen]

jeanie,

any danger of part of that red ridge winding up in the living room? have you ever walked up the hill behind the house and gotten on top of those rocks? would you have to climb, like rock climb, or could you just regular climb, like stairs, only find your own.

every scene is beautiful; i think i like the one of the resevoir the best; the soft colors and wide vista . . . it is all lovely.

and i don't believe you have two cats. i think you duplicated the one on the right, horizontal flip, a little gaussian blur and desat her eyes a little. i imagine they would have catly scorn for such a notion. typical human.

[jeaniesa]

DJ, I've only showed you photos of my small corner of CO. The state is SO diverse. The SW corner of the state has Mesa Verde, north from there is an amazing drive to Ouray (aka Little Switzerland). In the middle is Crested Butte known for (among other things) its wild flower festival each summer. Then there's Aspen across the pass (via hiking or biking) from Crested Butte (by car it's a long drive around). Amazing diversity in this state! And then there's the Utah canyon country just 8 hours away. When do I get to share pictures of that? Maybe we could start a thread of favorite places we've visited?

Tom, our term for this area is the "front range".

Chris, the mountains aren't going anywhere - they'll wait for you.

Kathleen, yes there is some danger of the red rocks falling. Happened a few years ago and created a 6'x6' hole in one of the homes down the street - and a boulder in the middle of the family room. I've convinced myself that should a rock fall above our house, it would either be split into smaller pieces or sent in a different direction from all of the other large boulders already lying on the hillside. Don't know if that's really true or not, but I don't lose any sleep over it. The rocks are very stable until they're not and there's not much we can do about it.

I have walked up the hill behind the house, but not all the way up the rock faces. I have done that one ridge to the north however. There are houses up on the ridge and rattlesnakes inhabit the hill in the summer, so I don't venture up the hill very often. There are lots of deer trails to follow. That's how I found my way up the rock face on the other ridge - just followed a deer trail and it led me right up. Pretty easy actually. (I am not a rock climber - too scared of heights and exposure. )

Now, about the cats. Believe me, we have two of them!! There's no way one cat could cause so much trouble. If you look closely, you'll see the markings on the face differ slightly. Plus, the picture doesn't show it well, but one cat has longer hair than the other. That's how we tell them apart, but we still get confused all the time.

Jeanie