Nice to Know You Aspen

The second stop on our working nomad journey has been Aspen. We are here by a twist of fate that enabled us to come on the off season and be in an apartment that would normally be rented when the tourists are in town.

Aspen is different than the other places we’ll be in that people don’t usually come here to work. We felt the pull of the mountains the whole time and lucky for us, we were able to hike or bike nearly every day after work. (One of the benefits of Mountain Time was that by 4ish most of the meetings were done for the day.)

When I say it is beautiful, I’m not joking. Have a look:

Gorg!

The author on top of Ute Rock looking down on Aspen

While we mostly cooked in the apartment, we had an opportunity to sample the local food, and Aspen has a wonderful set of restaurants. Some of the places we went to:

• Betula
• White House Tavern
• 7908 (which became a nightclub after hours)
• Matsuhisa
• Mi Chola

The internet was great and the apartment was big enough so we had no issues working. We do feel like we’re ready to get out of the house a bit more and our next destination offers us that opportunity.

The highlight of the trip was that 5 of our 7 kids came to visit for my birthday weekend. We hiked, we biked, they played with Teddy. We went to a wonderful party hosted by a neighbor here we just met. We missed the two who couldn’t make it, but one is in Europe and one is in Israel.

This looks like a fake background, right? But it’s real!

Some Aspen observations:

• Aspen is the most dog friendly city I’ve been in. You can off-leash most places including non-fenced public parks and many hiking trails. There are poop bags available everywhere near garbage cans. Needless to say Teddy loved it.
• Aspen caters to the wealthy. My friend Michael S says it’s the Hamptons of the Mountains. There are fabulous art galleries and every high end luxury brand you can imagine in a very small space. (Gucci, Dior, etc etc. )
• Because Aspen is so expensive, the people who work in the town can’t live in the town. Housing for workers is a major issue here and if you build something, you are required to build housing for the workers. Most live “down valley” in more affordable towns and take the very amazing public transportation in.
• The altitude is a thing! Take it seriously. Drink a lot of water.

On to our next adventure!