Hey y’all, Matt Blair here, and this is a little about myself. I was born in Norfolk, VA, and by the time I was 18 I had had twenty different mailing addresses. I’ve lived between Virginia, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, France, and now I call Colorado home. And I’m pretty sure it’s my permanent home. I moved to Denver in 2015, met my wife in 2016, we moved to Fort Collins in 2017, we had our daughter in 2019, and it’s been the most bad ass, amazingly tumultuous, incredible 45 years I’ve never even imagined I would survive.

 

I grew up spending most of my time outdoors playing Army with friends, exploring the woods and forests around the upper north west areas of South Carolina, and had the most fun being out and around the mountains. Having moved around so much, I was able to experience so much of the American southeast and even quite a bit of Europe. The summer before my 9th grade year I took a train from Virginia out to Butte, Montana, and spent a few weeks learning how to ride horses at my aunt’s buffalo ranch in Twin Bridges, MT, before we road tripped to Austin, TX, in her 1986 Chevy Suburban. Along the way we made an overnight stop just outside of Colorado Springs and it was there that I knew I eventually wanted to live in Colorado.

 

Life went on and I was full of bad decisions and shortsightedness, and in 2006 I was living in Clemson, SC, was a kitchen manager at a college bar and grill, and was pretty much drunk or stoned all of the time. And then my Army Reserve unit, A Co., 324th Signal Battalion, was mustered to join our brigade, the 335th Theater Command, and deploy to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. I spent a few months training at Fort Hood, TX, and was Close Quarters Battle and Combat First Responder qualified, trained, and certified, and then I was deployed to Forward Operating Base (FOB) Warhorse in Baqubah, Iraq, attached to the 1st Infantry 3rd Cavalry mechanized infantry through 2007.

 

Being in war has a way of changing a person, and good golly did it ever. I got home in late 2007, put myself through college, and graduated with my bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Mary Washington, with concentrations in literature, language, and linguistics, and did my seminars in Journalism and Poetics. After graduating I still kind of putzed around a bit because I wasn’t too sure what I wanted for myself, and in 2014 I was on a road trip from Los Angeles, CA, to Vail, CO, with my brother-in-law and sister, and we all decided it would be great if we could move to Denver together.

 

We met in the middle, they moved from LA, I moved from Richmond, VA, and my life basically began in Denver, CO in July of 2015. I was managing a couple of Jiffy Lube’s in Denver when I met my future wife at one of my shops. She came to get some service done, I told a few dumb jokes that she laughed at, and about a half-hour after she left she called the shop back and asked me out on a date. We’ve been together since our first date, 14 February 2016. We spent the next few years exploring the great outdoors in Colorado; hiking, camping, skiing, road trips, and then we had our daughter, Lilliana Aspen (Lily), in March, 2019.

 

Our favorite destinations are Winter Park, for year-round activities but skiing at Winter Park and Mary Jane has our hearts, Estes Park, because it is gorgeous and so many trails and beautiful sights to see, and just a few miles from our house is Horsetooth Reservoir for summertime paddleboarding and beach-time relaxations. We love packing Ol’ Marge and just heading out and enjoying the day or even a camping trip when we get the time. As Lily gets older she’s following our lead and becoming more and more accustomed to the outdoors and camping life that we so greatly enjoy.

 

Well, I hope to see and meet you all at some point in time. If you ever find yourself around Fort Collins, please reach out and we’ll go grab a beer and I’ll grill up some food at the house. Hope you like good food and big laughs! Keep Adventuring!