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Chris Hammond
Tuesday, January 06, 2009 1:33:14 AM

So last night I posted on the local Colorado SCCA Region’s solo website to start asking for input about the various areas we’re looking at moving to. I must admit, they’ve been far more helpful than I expected. It looks like if we end up in Ft. Collins there are a number of SCCA members in the area, but it also means we will likely have to drive 2-2.5 hours to get to the “local” autocross events which are generally held south of Colorado Springs.

I won’t mind the drive, at least I am telling myself that now :)

Chris Hammond
Monday, January 05, 2009 2:59:09 AM

I should be going to bed, but looking at houses has been keeping me up.

I like the look of this house

but it has a few drawbacks.

1. It’s priced high!!!!!

2. It doesn’t appear to have much of a yard.

Chris Hammond
Monday, January 05, 2009 2:51:27 AM
I am going to keep a list of potential homes I find on various realtor websites, I figured since we are making this move public, I might as well make the homes we’re thinking about public, at least for now. Here’s the first link I’ve found while messing around on a realtor.com search.
Chris Hammond
Sunday, January 04, 2009 11:20:13 PM

So we’re back home from Colorado and have the Envoy unpacked. It was a great trip, Natalie and I had fun, though we were a little tired of sitting in the car with nearly thirty-eight and a half hours of driving, and definitely another hour or so more of just sitting in it throughout the weekend.

GPS after trip

I’ll do a summary post later this week, but the trip went very well, we got a lot of information and have a good idea on what we will be doing later this year! Here’s what the roads looked like yesterday afternoon driving up to Littleton, Colorado from Castle Rock.

IMG_0307

Chris Hammond
Sunday, January 04, 2009 1:31:48 AM

So today is our last day in Colorado. We actually are already headed home, we left Denver this evening around 9pm and shortly ago stopped in Limon Colorado for the night. It’s snowing here, and was the whole trip, so we’ll camp out here tonight and see what the roads are like in the morning.

We spent today looking around at three dressage barns south of Denver. We saw a few nice places and talked to some very good resources for Natalie. We haven’t narrowed any decisions down yet as to where we will end up, but we got a lot of good info from today’s visits.

We also went to the golf course at Bear Dance where my former boss (form 1995/1996) works as the head professional there. It was a beautiful course, though there were only two trucks in the lot due to the weather! From there we headed west, doing a little off-roading in the Envoy.

To cap off the night we went to dinner with three of my fraternity brothers, it was a great time catching up with the guys. I am looking forward to getting to spend more time hanging out with them over the next few visits to Colorado!

We’ll have some more photos and such posted tomorrow night or the next day. We’ll be getting up early in the morning and hopefully heading to St. Louis, assuming the weather is good!

Chris Hammond
Saturday, January 03, 2009 12:54:40 AM
Natalie and I spent most of today looking around Ft. Collins. The first thing we did after breakfast and leaving the hotel was to head to Autozone to get the check engine light scanned on the Envoy. The code reported a problem with either the MAP or one of the hoses. I ended up resetting the code, and we drove the rest of the day, a couple hundred miles, without it coming back on. Perhaps it was just the altitude yesterday that caused a problem. After getting the Envoy squared away we started calling Dressage barns in the area and went and visited a few. We found one that I think Natalie really likes, Chatellen, I like it too, but mostly because of the beagle Joe. Well Joe and check out the view from their farm of the mountains.
Chris Hammond
Friday, January 02, 2009 1:14:49 AM

So Natalie and headed off from Buena Vista today towards Ski Cooper. We barely made it out of town when we realized we hadn’t left the Schmidt’s xmas card, so we turned around and drove it back. We hand delivered theirs because it was the first one returned to us due to them changing addresses.

So we took off to Ski Cooper and made it up within about an hour, maybe less, from  Buena Vista, taking in some amazing sights along the way.

We had a blast at Ski Cooper, it’s not the fanciest or largest of places, but we hit the slopes for $75, two half day lift tickets and rental skis/boots for Natalie. It’s hard to beat that price!

Natalie at the top Natalie on the way down

We’ll have more pictures later, I think my card reader is in the car.

After a few hours on the slopes we planned to head to Ft. Collins for the night, with the intention of starting to look at horse stables tomorrow. Well, on the way out of Ski Cooper I decided I wanted to take a picture of the mountains. Fortunately for us another guy named Chris came by in his F250 and pulled us out of the snowbank I thought would be a great place to park for the picture. Needless to say I didn’t get the picture, but I did get to have some fun trying to get the Envoy out of the snow. FYI 4wd doesn’t do much in 3-4 feet of snow :D

So we’re in Ft. Collins, now, we’re going to head out in the morning and look at a few stables Natalie found online. We also need to try to hit an Autozone and get the Envoy scanned. The check engine light came on on our way to Cooper this morning. I don’t imagine it’s anything major, but we’ll see what a code scanner says tomorrow.

Chris Hammond
Thursday, January 01, 2009 11:55:25 AM

So we made it to Colorado yesterday. We ended up driving from St. Louis to Buena Vista to stay overnight with some of our friends, the Schmidts. They live on South Main here in Buena Vista, a new development right along the Arkansas River. It’s amazing here, beautiful views and beautiful buildings going up. I’ll try to take some pictures as we head out of town. We’re heading off to Ski Cooper here in a bit.

Our drive up was pretty uneventful, 900+ miles, I’m glad we purchased a Garmin 255W before we left town, it made the trip a breeze, and will come in extremely handy while we spend the next couple of days venturing around the state. Photos and more blogging coming over the next few days.

Chris Hammond
Tuesday, December 30, 2008 11:24:22 PM

So tomorrow marks the beginning of our journey. We are heading to Colorado for New Years, with the intention of trying to see as much as we can, get some time in on the slopes, see some friends, and hopefully see some dressage barns out there. We’ll post updates throughout the trip, photos included!

Chris Hammond
Tuesday, December 30, 2008 1:02:40 AM

I imagine I’ll get laughed off the slopes if I went out like this.

Ready to Go by you.

Chris Hammond
Monday, December 29, 2008 1:29:52 AM
So Natalie and I are headed to Colorado Wednesday morning. As of right now the trip is pretty free formatted. Natalie has a list of barns we are going to try to see, though I don’t think she’s contacted any of them. We will leave here bright and early, more likely, Dark and Early, around 3am.
Chris Hammond
Sunday, December 21, 2008 2:45:55 AM

So Natalie and I are heading to the Denver area for New Years, we’re going to leave St. Louis Tuesday evening the 30th, and stay in the area until sometime on Sunday when we drive back.

I am glad we aren’t planning on flying there! Check out this article about a Continental jet having some major issues trying to leave Denver Airport today!

 

Firefighters found the Boeing 737 on fire, with its wheels sheered off, resting in a ravine about 200 yards from the runway, said Patrick Hynes, chief of the airport division of the Denver Fire Department.

"They described a surreal scene when they pulled up, heavy fire on the right side of the aircraft, all chutes deployed from both sides of the aircraft, people evacuating and walking up the hillside towards them," Hynes said.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/12/20/colorado.plane.fire/index.html

I think we’ll drive, thank you very much.

Chris Hammond
Monday, December 08, 2008 11:14:35 PM
Natalie and I are looking at heading out to Colorado for a trip to start looking around and seeing what areas we might want to live when we move later in 2009. We had planned to go in December but with school and work I wasn't able to make the time for a trip. We're now thinking about going at the end of the month. With New Years Eve and New Years Day we could leave Tuesday night or Wednesday and I would only have to miss one day of work, Friday the 2nd. That would give us 4 or 5 days out there to look around.
Chris Hammond
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 6:41:35 PM

So today is our two year wedding anniversary. I have the best wife in the world! Natalie got me a K2 snowboard for our anniversary, how cool is that?

I guess that really means I need to get us a trip to Colorado booked in January!!!

Here’s a photo!

New Snowboard

Chris Hammond
Monday, November 24, 2008 10:20:42 PM

So when we started this website a few months ago it was planned to track our move to Colorado in 2009. Well, 2009 is getting closer, and more and more we talk about the move, so it is probably time to fill you in on who “we” are.

This is run by Christopher and Natalie Hammond, currently residing in St. Louis, Missouri. You can click on either of our names to get to our individual sites, or you can visit our family site at www.horsesandcars.com.

Natalie and I have been married for just about two years now (in just over a week actually). We met online, Match.com (yeah yeah, we’re geeks, well I am), we’ve been in St. Louis the whole time we’ve been dating. I’ve actually lived here in St. Louis since 2000, prior to that I spent 4 years in Rolla, MO, about 100 miles west of St. Louis. Natalie has been in the area since 2004 this time around, spending a few years in Germany training in dressage.

We’ve both been to Colorado a few times and are looking forward to taking a few trips out there over the next months as we decide where we want to live.

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