I'm an ex-'dyed in the wool' East Coaster new to Colorado. A short visit over the winter holidays on my way further west has turned somehow into a stay of more than seven months. I didn't think I'd be looking to find a place to live in Boulder and signing a lease, taking the VT tags off my car, and considering changing (almost but not quite!) my phone number of many years. But that's what I've ended up doing, and I haven't looked back.

I love being outside and am excited to have new outdoors territory here to explore. I'm a pretty dedicated runner year round and have enjoyed some great races out here so far. About to start training for a fall marathon (my first!) While I relish travel in general and have been somewhat of a wanderer much of my life, I'm particularly drawn to the slower, more deliberate kind: the trips where you hike into the woods or up into the hills carrying everything you need on your back. I think Gary Snyder nailed it spot on when he wrote that "the wilderness pilgrim's step-by-step, breath-by-breath walk up a trail is so ancient a set of gestures as to bring a profound sense of body-mind joy."

Food is a big part of my life. Some of my earliest memories are of the kitchen and I worked with food for a couple years after graduating from college. Being a moderately crunchy granola kind of guy, that work experience took the form of making raw milk goat cheeses on a small farm as well as baking flatbreads for a bakery whose mission statement included the idea that food "remembers acts of hand and heart." I mostly think this is true and support sustainable food production, "slow food", mindful eating, etc., but I'm not a nut about it: I'm fascinated by food and feeding people in all forms, whether it means cooking dinner based on what's ready to pick in the garden or planning a road trip around the best greasy spoon diners and deep-fried doughnuts.

I'd like to stay in Colorado for a while, so I'd like to put down a couple roots, find community here, and meet new friends and activity partners. I think that this profile gives a general idea of some things that I'm interested in, and it would be great to meet some guys who are similarly inclined. But I also believe that friendship and connection can exist even if you don't share the same interests, so I'm pretty open to meeting all honest, open, down-to-earth men interested in conscious relationship, whether casual or more serious.