<--- has lived in Denver since the fall of 1998. Only places I've considered moving to since I got here has been either Seattle, WA or Vancouver, BC. Here you will find that alot of people only keep jobs to pay for their hobbies/activities. I've heard several people joke about "needing to go back to work to recover from their weekends". I don't think there are really that many places in CO that aren't nice (with a few Urban area exceptions). It all depends on what kind of environment you're looking for (downtown vs suburban, city vs rural, Family friendly vs Adult, etc.).
Not sure how familiar you are with CO, but like all states there are several pockets of "left" and "right" types. Colorado Springs tends to be more conservative, Boulder is definately liberal. Mountain towns tend to be on the liberal side, while the eastern plains tend to be more conservative. Denver is in the middle (both geographically and socially), but tends to lean towards the liberal side when it comes to social things. Obviously this is a gross over-generalization, but is a good starting point when looking for places to live.
Concerning moving companies, my wife and I did a bunch of research on using one of those nation-wide companies when we were thinking of moving to Seattle. The only really big downside to them is that you have to be very flexible with the dates they come to get your stuff and drop it off. They told us to basically "live out of a suitcase" for about 3 weeks because of their flexible scheduling. It's along the same lines as the cable guy: they'll be there anywhere between 8am and 3pm, except the movers will say they'll pick up between the 5th and 10th and will have everything delivered between the 17th and the 22nd. This is because (depending on how much stuff you have), you will end up sharing a truck with up to 4-5 other households who are also moving across the country. So despite the fact it only takes 2 days to drive from NJ to CO, your truck may have to make stops in VA, OH, IL, IN, SD, NE, WY, after picking up your stuff. They tend to give you a much better schedule the week before the actual move because they actually have the trip planned out, but it could still take a couple of weeks for your stuff to make the trip. Some companies will offer to pack everything for you (for a fee), but our estimate was based on us pre-packing everything and they load, haul, & unload. And they do this for the cool, low price of a few grand.
If you plan on packing everything yourself, I would really look into using a large Uhaul truck. Even a cross-country move would only cost a few hundred dollars.
