You won't find better cities than Denver and Boulder (well, maybe Seattle and Portland would not agree BUT they have rain, lots of it). We have 300 days of sunshine a year, but the last few years this means bad wildfires and drought. Very few days of brown cloud as other post mentioned. Not enough snow this year which we badly need for skiing, snowboarding, water for farmers, people, and wild animals. But even that meant many more days for hiking and biking our huge number of trails and beautiful mountains. I came in 1975, unfortunately so did many, many other people so traffic and commuting's a pain and so is getting to the western slope for skiing. Boulder has its own ski slope, it's not Vail or Aspen but pretty good and much cheaper. Rocky Mountain National Park one hour from Denver, state and city parks outstanding. Denver cheaper than Boulder but rents have gone up since so few people can afford to buy. Very few good paying jobs open as is true of most cities; lots of people can only afford to live in the burbs and have to commute to Denver and Boulder.
Excellent restaurants, museums and theater. Great music scene in Denver. (Read Westword weekly paper) Broncos and Rockies big fan teams. CU a great university; good private and community colleges. Boulder home to many Nobel winners at NIST, NOAA, NREL, NCAR and CU.
Best of all lots more liberals than most cities in the west (if you don't count Seattle, Portland and SanFrancisco!)
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