Leaving Glenwood

Dave and I have lived a lot of places and moved more times then I can remember, but none have ever been as difficult or bittersweet as leaving Glenwood Springs. Since I left my home in New Jersey for college, no place has really felt like home until Glenwood Springs; It is the place we got married and bought our first house and the first place we have really made lasting friendships. It's these friendships that made the departure so difficult.

We were thrown a couple of parties by the work clan but the most memorable was a somewhat impromptu gathering of our neighbors in our condo complex. On the night before we intended to leave all the neighbors and some of our friends from town gathered for a BBQ pot-luck at the picnic benches in the middle of the buildings. It was the most warm and genuine send off I could have imagined. We drank, laughed andtalked. At the end of the evening, with lasting embraces I can still feel days later on the train out to San Francisco, we said our goodbyes.

When we woke up the next morning the complex was quiet. Everyone was at work, but I could still hear the laughter as we passed the picnic benches while carrying boxes down the stairs to the U-haul. We didn't actually finish our packing and cleaning that day and spent another night in town. When we called friends to say we were staying another night no one hesitated to reply that they would be over right after work.

And with another night of drinking, laughing and, jokes that we would still be there by the weekend, we did say our final goodbyes.

The next morning we woke from the floor, not wanting to sleep in the bedroom after having finished cleaning upstairs. We picked up the last bags turned off the lights, drew the shades and locked the doors. The car was packed and we were ready to go.

Tomorrow we would be on the train and our renters would be moving in. Looking through the rear-view mirror of the car the canyon walls closed on Glenwood Canyon and the valley in front of us opened to a new type of relationship, with the road.