rumblebelly

We go there once or twice a year to see family. Nice town but very busy during the summer due to tourists. Cool movie theater. How can anything suck in the Adirondacks?

We are thinking about relocating to the area so we checked out Saratoga. Downtown was extremely nice, looks like they dumped a great deal of money into it. Almost has a snobby vibe. Very vibrant with lots of places to eat and drink. Housing seemed pretty high for upstate. Must be all that horse money floatin around.

I was a little disappointed. The downtown area looks like it was really nice at one time but many of the buildings are now empty. The surrounding neighborhood around downtown looked a little poor too. I heard it’s going through a revitalization. One bright spot we found: Brown’s Brewery close to the river.

I went to school at UNK. Good college, nice quiet town. Not a whole lot to do though. The Platte River can be fun, same with the sand pits for swimming. Probably one of the nicest small cities in Nebraska.

FC is a good town. Great downtown, a decent mix of old Colorado cowboys and progressive types, college kids, hippies, punks, yuppies, rednecks. Few minorities live here except Hispanics which provide the majority of the culture here. The beer is fantastic, we have 3 excellent breweries and a good brew pub here with cask pale ale. There’s one brewery that’s not so great but I won’t name it here. Close to the mountains too!

However, we are thinking about moving to upstate NY where my wife is from. Don’t get me wrong, FC is a great place but it’s not quite right for us. If you like a nice rainy day or snow storms, you’ll be disappointed. It is practically a desert here. Little snow except for a few storms, and little rain. If you like the colors brown, gold, yellow, and sienna then you’ll love Fort Collins. My wife’s sinuses go through hell in the winter becuase of the lack of humidity. Most of the time campfires are banned in the summer because of forest fire risks. We have been in a bad drought for the past few years, hopefully that’ll change soon.

The job situation is fairly good here. However, most tech jobs are in the Boulder, Longmont, Denver area. Look hard enough and long enough you’ll probably find something in FC. The price of housing is pretty high along the front range and the pay employers dish out really doesn’t make up for it.

People ask a lot about bad neighborhoods. There aren’t really any bad neighborhoods, just bad streets scattered here and there, particularly on the north side of town. They are easy to spot, the structures just look run down. There’s a healthy homeless population but I’ve never felt threatened at night. I think it’s a pretty safe place to live overall.