Memorial Day Weekend Kicks Off the Summer in the Springs

Like the rest of the country, Memorial Day weekend tends to signal the beginning of summer in Colorado Springs. The grass is now green, the leaves are on the trees, time to get together with friends and family and celebrate! That will hopefully be easier on Monday than today, as a cold front came through and dropped the temperature into 50's and 60's from the 80's yesterday! It was cool and rainy today, good for the grass and flowers to be sure.

Next week is Air Force Academy graduation, and VP Joe Biden will be speaking. The Thunderbirds always put on a good show for this, and we get a preview of the show as they practice in the days leading up to the graduation, especially in the Briargate and Northgate areas that sit immediately across I25 from Falcon Stadium, where the flyover and graduation occur. Today's picture was taken last spring of the Chapel and surrounding areas as seen from Briargate.

May is also the kickoff of allergy season, at least for me. My allergies are usually a lot better here than they were in prior places I have lived (Michigan and California), but in May I can get it pretty good sometimes, and this year has been extra bad for a couple of weeks. It usually passes fairly quickly, but the doctor thinks I picked up some kind of bronchitis along with them this year, so I have been sick for a few days this week (I hate it when that happens!). Hopefully I'll be good as new shortly.

Got questions about living in Colorado Springs? Call me at 719-590-4768 or 888-568-6784!

Today is graduation day at the Air Force Academy. Hopefully the skies will clear (it was raining finally this morning!), or the Thunderbirds may not be able to do their thing. I included the link so you can enjoy some of what they offer, even though I probably won't be getting any photos today. With President Bush delivering the commencement address, it would be a shame if they could not fly.
This week also is approximately the 1 year anniversary of this blog, and I was surprised to see how many postings there were (170 or so?) To celebrate, I added a new link on this site to a Google Docs spreadsheet that I think many will find useful. It is a spread sheet and collection of charts that show trends in Colorado Springs home sales data. The data is derived from the Pikes Peak Association of Realtors web site, but includes some additional calculations and statistics. There is a little bug in the software, so the charts are reading right to left instead of left to right, but this should be pretty current all the time, and the data portion works well. With luck Google may get the left to right thing going too! This a permanent link on the menu on the right side of the blog. I'll continue to discuss monthly statistics on the blog, but I think this will be a nice addition to help put things in perspective.
One thing that I noticed on the Months Supply trend, is that while we are doing better than the nation as a whole (8 months supply vs 10.5 months for the rest of the country), we are a long way from the good old days of the summer of 2005, when it was only 3 months! Thankfully, prices have not moved too much, and once we get out of these doldrums, I think will recover fine.

Summer has arrived in Colorado Springs. Not on the calendar, but on the thermometer. We are in a balmy 80 plus degree pattern at the moment, which would be a little nicer if we were getting our normal afternoon thunderstorms, which we are not. It is getting dry out there, we could really use some rain.

Memorial Day weekend is this week! School is about to get out (my teacher wife is counting the days), and everyone is gearing up for graduations, weddings, and lots of outdoor grilling. Air Force Academy graduation is the Wednesday after Memorial Day, and along with the Thunderbirds air show, President Bush will be speaking. I am hoping to get some decent photos of the Thunderbirds, I'll share them here if I do. Graduation week is usually a tough one for people who need hotel rooms, as the whole town kind of fills up for the graduation and the ensuing spate of weddings that take place in the days that follow.

This is usually when the high mountain passes of Trail Ridge Road at Rocky Mountain National Park, and Independence Pass open, although rumor is that Independence is a week or more behind schedule due to the huge amount of snow they had this winter and spring. The photo is of my son Daniel from 3 summers ago, 4th of July week at Independence Pass.