Does anyone live in Colorado? What's it like?

Lots of people live there. There are mountains and shit. ;)

I however, live in Ohio. Spent a night in Denver, it was a blast.

Too cold for me, I also prefer a more open skyline to mountains.

This might help, a question of mine from not too long ago: http://www.fluther.com/160378/are-there-any-jellies-living-in-colorado/

I live in Colorado. Aurora, to be exact. Having lived in many other states, I think this is the best combo of warm weather and cold (current conditions notwithstanding!).

I lived there (Aurora, to be exact) for about 15 years.

If you live in metro Denver, it is generally flat and arid. Dry. There is no such thing a foliage; it’s too dry. You do see lots of rolling tumbleweed, however.

You see prairie dogs (ugly noisy rodents) and a fair share of rattlesnakes.

On the other hand, the view of the mountains can be breathtaking (if there is no pollution that day) and the mountains themselves are wonderful. Some of my favorite places in the USA are in Colorado : Great Sand Dunes National Park, Telluride, Ouray, etc.

It’s like any place – some areas are great. Others are not.

The drive from the lowlands up to Aspen will kill a transmission.

I grew up in Colorado, but I hate snow and I left as soon as I could.

I love Colorado, wouldn’t mind moving there in many ways, but would miss the ocean here on the west coast. I was last In Co. in 2006.
The great Colorado migration might be underway with the new marijuana laws.
If you like mountains and wildlife and rugged country it is great, not much different than the Sierras where I live.

@elbanditoroso I love Ouray, and I love Angelfire N.M. on the border too.

Downsides? Colorado Springs is overrun with fundamentalists. Colorado conservatives have declared jihad on state legislators who support any limits on firearms. They’ve also led efforts to prevent improvements in education.

However they haven’t nearly ruined the state. I have relatives there and I visit at least once a year. Denver is too hot for me in the summer. I could go for Fort Collins, a really nice mid-sized city (or is it small? 153,000 people). In the past few years I’ve spent some time in Salida which is a great small town.

If you like the outdoors, the opportunities are fantastic, winter and summer.

I grew up in Denver and went to college in Colorado Springs. It is indeed the paradise you are imagining. Drawbacks of living there, hmm…all of them are more non-preferences, really:

Some areas of Denver and the Springs, and some entire towns especially in the southern part of the state are very, very poor. But that’s true of most any state.

It has a lot of prisons. But that doesn’t affect the general population much unless you’re in a prison-economy town like Canon City.

Colorado Springs is a more conservative town, true. But I really enjoyed living there – there are a lot of different types of people in the city, and for liberalism there’s Manitou, the attached sister-city. It is a good town for people in the military – there are a few bases, and NORAD and the Air Force Academy are both there.

CO has very little flatwater paddling, which is a large part of why I don’t live there now. But if whitewater’s your thing, can’t get any better.

Ski towns can be expensive and snooty. But you don’t have to spend a ton of money to ski a lot.

Boulder, to me, is a really large college town. Don’t get me wrong; I like Boulder and all, but it’s kind of like the San Francisco of CO – into “being Boulder.” The feeling that it could tip over the edge into hipsterdom at any moment has always put me off a bit, personally. But that’s some people’s thing, so hey, it’s all good.

It’s got very dry air. This is a positive for most and a negative for some. I loved the humidity when I moved East, but moving back to CO after that I barely noticed the difference between the two.

The forests are…different. Sparser. Still lovely, but not lush and dense like coastal forests. And in the plains areas you may find yourself missing trees.

Oh! Actual objective drawback: you must own a car. Public trans super-sucks.

Huge positive you may not know yet: very few bugs. Growing up, I didn’t know what a tick was until we moved to Pennsylvania.

This is my favorite place in Colorado (so far): the Great Sand Dunes.

@wildpotato Thanks so much for the detailed response. And oh my god yes, once that light bulb came on in my head regarding the dry air and lack of bugs I was ready to go then. :)

I’m not sure where @elbanditotoriso lived but it must have been the eastern part of the state aka the Kansas portion where no one in their right mind lives anyhow. Plus like any real desert enthusiast like myself knows, there is plant life everyone even in the driest climates! Anyhow Colorado is nothing like that. There are tons of trees and foliage. The weather is way warmer and better than in PA Where I’m from. I thought it would be the opposite. People are super nice. Weed is legal. That’s it. It’s the best.

I live in Boulder and If you simply avoid “the Hill” and the college bars which you learn about in time, you can mostly avoid stupid college crowds. Yes there is some pretentiousness and snooty yoga folks but at least they are conscious of themselves and their surroundings more so than a lot of other places. Also you never have to see a gross city skyline yet are still in a town that is big enough.

I live near Boulder, too. I love the environment, the food and the ‘almost San Francisco’ vibe, the skyline, the activities—just LOVE it. But, wow…. it can be entitlement central. Many of the college students come from money and zip around in their Audis and BMWs while texting or yakking on their phone, thinking they own the entire universe. Exactly what @deni said, there are also the pretentiousness and snooty yoga-vegan crowds. They judge others that aren’t like them—but I found a way to enjoy the town and live there without paying attention to those folks. I just wonder at the fact that they’re not much different than the fundamentalists down in Colorado Springs- both equally as close-minded, but just on different ends of the spectrum.

Each city/area on the Front Range (that’s the north/south swath east of the mountains) has a completely different “personality.” Fort Collins and Greeley are college towns, like Boulder is—I find the community there more warm and friendly, albeit more conservative, agricultural and smack dab in the middle of Weld County- Fracking Heaven for Colorado and the county leading the push to secede from Colorado and create North Colorado, where fracking and oil drilling are not blocked (Boulder banned fracking, yay!), where gay marriage is banned, weed legalization is repealed and there are no gun laws. Fort Collins does have its weed-smoking art-loving community, but they don’t win at the polls. If someone says there’s “nothing wrong with Colorado,” I think they’re forgetting the fracking folks. I think they’re also forgetting that new houses are being vomited out all over the place—old houses are being ignored for “bigger and better” in the suburbs.

~~ Just don’t light up a joint next to a fracking rig. You don’t know what chemicals you’re inhaling- might be explosive.~~

Denver is a huge sprawl with a bizarre street pattern- but there’s no one descriptor. Each suburb has its own reputation and personality as well. I enjoy going to Golden, Centennial, Aurora, Arvada, and in Denver, I enjoy Santa Fe (art district), the Washington Park area and Tattered Cover Bookstore. There are parts I could do without—some areas on Colfax Ave., can’t stand Longmont (another suburb), am not too crazy about Commerce City or the other northeastern suburbs, etc. etc.

I hate the idea that people will move here just to legally smoke weed. That means more resources will be wasted building unnecessary houses and pushing further and further from the city. Mountain towns are being overrun by resorts and million dollar condos. I wish money would be put towards preservation and renovation rather than expansion.

YES, Colorado is heaven. I love it here. Love the weather, the balance between plains and mountains, the outdoor activities, the culture offered in Denver, the cheap airfares from a hub airport. Love the skyline, driving to work everyday with the mountains in view, love it that weed is legal and less people will be put in jail. Love the lack of bugs and even enjoy the high altitude. BUT… I don’t think enough people are respecting the state or its resources, and aren’t working enough to preserve the gorgeousness that Colorado offers.

If you move here—welcome! I’ll roll out the mat and bring you a craft-beer basket… but will chase you down if you don’t cherish this place :D :D

@linguaphile Thanks so much for the information!

I have one more question: Can you guys tell me about adjusting to elevation? I can google most of it, but if there’s something uncommon people may not think about or aren’t aware of you could share that’d be great.

1) you may get headaches for a couple of weeks until you adjust to the altitude. You may also tire more rapidly. If you are someone who gets short of breath with exertion, you will probably feel that as well. If you’re going to running in Denver, take care for the first several weeks or a month until you have adjusted.

2) Drink a lot. Keep hydrated. You are going to a place which, geographically, is high desert. Meaning, significantly lower humidity.

3) Invest in chapstick or its equivalent. Keep lips moistened.

4) Invest in whatever creams or chemicals keep your skin moist. Again, it’s the humidity or lack of it.

5) If you climb to the top of Pikes Peak (14,410 feet) and run 100 yards, you will faint. I promise you. The higher you go, the less air there is.

@Blackberry I didn’t have problems adjusting to the elevation—it’s an individual thing, I guess. What I had problems adjusting to was needing to drink more water due to the dry weather and having to use much, much more sunscreen—I had spent 6 years in Minnesota where they have 2½ days of sun- Colorado gets at least 300 days of sun and has the highest per capita occurrence of skin cancer because we’re also closer to the sun. I invested in a good pair of polarized sunglasses to wear year around. I agree with all of @elbanditoroso‘s comments—ease into the elevation and dryness.
Yes—sunny, dry, you might get nosebleeds, etc, etc but Life’s So Good without seasonal mood swings.

Don’t run up stairs for the first week. We’d always have a rash of new freshman headed to the health office at the start of the school year because they fainted on the stairs. Don’t stand up too fast, even.

Don’t drink as much alcohol in a sitting – it will affect you more at elevation.

Cooking directions can be a little different: times take a bit longer; things that take leavener take a little less; boiling temperatures are lower, etc. Most recipes account for this but some do not – my fiance noticed a positive difference in some recipes he hadn’t realized needed to be altered when we moved to sea level.

Dry air tip: humidifiers and swamp coolers are your friends.

I noticed it while hiking for the first few months. I also got headaches more frequently for a while. Always around 3 pm. Which was weird. I don’t think it was too crazy. Most people adjust just fine.

I do! I love it here! I live at the base of the mountains. It’s very pretty, especially in the fall when all the leaves turn different colors! I like to drive in the mountains during the fall to look at all the beautiful trees!
It’s very dry here so we get so many wildfires. It gets really hot in the summer and really cold in the winter. It all depends on where you live though, Colorado has prairies, mountains and deserts. I personally don’t like the cold at all, so winter is kind of awful for me, although the snow is really pretty and if you’re into winter sports, then it’s a good place to be.
There are so many beautiful national parks here. If you visit, I suggest Rocky Mountain National Park. It’s a gorgeous national park in the Rocky Mountains with camping, cabins, hundreds of hiking trails, and pretty mountain drives. I suggest you go during the fall, because that’s mating season for the elk so the bull elk bugle and fight each other. It’s very cool to watch!
I’ve lived in Colorado my whole life, and I love it here! It is beautiful! You should definitely come visit here sometime! The mountains are the best, and it’s totally worth it!