Recently I spent a week in beautiful Avon, Colorado with my son Trevor and his wife, Joanna, and their one year old baby Isaiah to celebrate the baby's birthday. If you don't know where Avon is, it's just outside of Vail where my son teaches high school. The ironic thing is that while my husband and I now live in Paradise, Utah--we are building a home three miles south of here in Avon, Utah. So I thought I'd compare the two Avon's. Our Avon currently only has around four hundred people while Avon, Colorado has more than ten times that amount, still a pretty small town. Even in the winter, with the ski season in full swing the town only boasts ten-thousand people. Both Avon's are kind of in the mountains. My son lives in a condo on top of a shopping district. Nothing like having a hankering for authentic Mexican food and finding it just down the stairs. In our Avon, it would be about a eight mile drive and then some for a really good restaurant.
Both Avon's offer outdoor recreation. Skiing in Avon, Co. would be carrying your skis outside your door, taking a short walk to Beaver Creek Resort--the closest, or hopping on a shuttle and going to any number of other resorts. Skiing in Avon, Utah means piling the skis into the car and driving to Beaver Mountain, about a forty-five drive.
Fishing is available in either town. We have Cinnamon Creek and The Little Bear River. They have the gorgeous Eagle River and Beaver Creek. I have included a picture of me by Beaver Creek in Colorado. Hiking is available in both towns. However, we took a hike while in Avon, Colorado. We had to drive to the Beaver Creek Lodge, get on a shuttle, which then dropped us off at the trail head. We then hiked for a mile or two before we were out of the boundary of the ski resort. Still we pretty much had the mountain to ourselves and it was every bit the wilderness that you would find deep in the Unitas or in Yellowstone National Park. And you would have to hike a long way from Avon, Utah to find anything equal to it.
I got curious and decided to compare real-estate prices. For just over two million dollars you could buy a three bedroom condominium in Avon Colorado. That really makes me wonder what the prices of the mansions were that we passed coming down from our hike. If you took our classiest home in Cache Valley and set it next to them, it wouldn't compare.
A three bedroom house in Avon, Utah would cost you about three-hundred thousand to build on more than an acre of land or so.
The temperature though at six o clock at night is still in the nineties here and is only 70 degrees there. Both towns do have their share of wildlife. We saw an abundance of deer in both towns. And we saw a black bear running right through the middle of town while we were in Avon, Colorado. The only black animal we've seen running down the street here though is our neighbors Labrador when we yell at it to get off of our property, or the black and white animal that kept my husband's clothes smelling for weeks.
One thing though we, in our little backwoods rural town are eons ahead on than liberal Avon, Colorado is recycling. In our hicksville we have curbside recycling! In Avon, Colorado you would have to be very diligent to recycle. There was a recycling center on the edge of town, but there were no in-town containers even for aluminum. I was shocked by their lack of ecological effort in this way.
But one thing that Avon, Colorado has that we don't that's pretty important to me is the baby sleeping in the back pack. So for now, we'll be traveling between the two cities for some time to come.
