This December, I am leaving my beloved Crested Butte, Colorado for NYC. Because I have never lived in such a great sized city or in the northeast for that matter, this move may seem a bit random. My roots are Southern, and I have lived in the West for the past 10 years. But, this choice is anticipated and carefully planned. My family and I will be moving to the Chelsea area in Manhattan just in time for Christmas!
The town of Crested Butte sits at about 9,000 ft. and is inhabited by a few thousand locals. When the snow starts to fall, we get our skis ready for 5 months of lift-access skiing and even longer for back-country skiing. The visitors will start to arrive closer to the Christmas and New Years holidays so this small mountain town will soon be buzzing with an amazing spirit. Then there is the dramatic swing in the number of visitors between the winter and summer seasons. When the resort shuts down in early April, the town becomes very quiet until just before the 4th of July. It is quiet enough during our off-seasons, that most of the restaurants and retail businesses temporarily close down. Summertime in Crested Butte is very popular with the amazing wildflowers, hiking, and mountain biking trails. Then, it is quiet again once schools are back in session, and the summer days begin to loose their glory. Then the ski season rolls around again just in time.
Crested Butte has been my home for the past 10 years. It is here that I married, built a home, had 2 children, entered my 30s, made wonderful friendships, skied, hiked, and became more of the woman I am meant to be. I can't imagine having experienced these milestones in another place. My family's roots have been started here, and although we will now spread our roots in other places, we will never forget where they began. When we come back to Crested Butte as visitors, we will not be your average tourist who comes to ski or enjoy the wildflowers. We will be more. We have lived it, changed because of it, and we chose to move on because it made us ready for something bigger. Crested Butte has nurtured us as a family and made us ready to go do something great in another place.
My husband is a General Contractor of some of the finest homes in Crested Butte. We have been very blessed to have great work and great clients even through the recent downturn. Some of our clients, the people who find Crested Butte and make it their second home, have become closer than family. To think that they will be spending another Christmas in Crested Butte, but without us, seems a bit unsettling to me today, but I know this Christmas will be great for us, too. We will most likely go to Rockefeller Center and watch the ice skaters, see The Lion King on Broadway, see our real families who all live closer to NY than Colorado, explore our new city, and get ready for new schools and jobs in January.
This is just a little history of what we are coming from and what we have decided to do! I will tell our story as we go...
