COLORADO vs CAROLINA

I have lived in The Carolinas for the last 10 years. I am not a southern boy by any stretch but I will say that the climate and geography has grown on me over time (thank god the accent and backwoods outlook hasn't!). And while Aspen may be named after and was conceived in The Rockies, she has never known anything other than the sun and surf of the lakes and hills of The Blue Ridge region. Yet it is time for me to weigh in on moving back to my home of colorful Colorado. There is alot to love about this here Piedmont area. I much more prefer an afternoon of lounging and drinking on a nicely anchored pontoon boat than hiking a vertical trail while keeping an eye out for a black bear or mountain lion. I definately favor 9 months of the year where the outside 7am temp is 65 degrees as opposed to that being the mid afternoon high for the month of July alone. I certainly have grown accustomed to to seeing my favorite artists (Buffett, Black Crowes, Allman Brothers, et al) show up regularly within a 20 minute drive. And if I never see another flake of snow again it would be too soon! Then there would be the move for Aspen. I had to change elementary schools twice in my day. Uprooting myself from my friends and familiar surroundings was the most difficult times of my life. I can look back on that now and see how my self confidence took a huge dive and I never fully recovered from the moves. I certainly would never want Aspen to go through such a hard time uneccessarily. But she seems to do much better than I did with making friends and adapting to new settings so I may be projecting my fears onto her, something I have made every effort to never do. Finally there is the headache of the move itself. Securing new digs, the cost of the move, finding a new job (after 8 years of a Bush economy? Ha!), something I do not look forward to. But then there's the benefits: Mainly, my mother. She lives to be a grandmother yet has spent less than 100 days with her grandaughter up to this point because of the distance. She would definately be a wonderful influence on Aspen. She is highly cultured, extremely achieved and would be able to smooth out any rough edges I may have overlooked in raising my daughter (No elbows on the table when eating? Yep, I forgot to instill that one for sure!). Of course Red Rocks can't be beat for seeing a show even though it would be a few hours away. And it's been years since I attended a Bronco's or Rockies game! And there are mountain biking trails a plenty out there for a real workout. Oh! And no more allergies! That's a serious bonus! And I have a disc golf partner in Colorado (for those 1 or 2 days when it's actually warm enough to throw)! We haven't tossed together since our youth. But basically the move would be for mom and Aspen. I mean, if neither of them were in the picture I would either stay where I was or move to Belize for the final days on Earth (The Mayan Calander people, look it up!). At any rate, that's what's going on up in the ole cabezza de Brico. Decisions, decisions.