This article has been brewing inside of me for quite some time now. As a certified Facebook scroller, I am a devotee of our community pages. There are pretty much the same few posts mixed up and reposted day after day. There’s the “shoutout about a local business” post, the “lost dog/cat” post, the “whose scat/paw print is this?” post, the “where are the elk today?” post, and then there are the complainer posts. Whether it’s a complaint about a restaurant, someone airing their dirty laundry for all the world to see, or just your general run-of-the-mill curmudgeon, we all know that these are the posts with the best comments. People start tagging each other and trails of conversations grow like the wisteria vines on the Bridgerton’s house—twisting and overlapping and running off on tangents. Inevitably, someone at some point identifies another as an “outsider” and this is where it stops being fun. They tell the person to “move back to California” or “if you don’t like it here, go back where you came from.”
“The left lane is for passing. That is all.”
As a third generation Colorado girl, this really rankles me. After all, haven’t we all come from somewhere? Even my great-grandmother, who raised four girls in Denver, was not born here. And, c’mon, people, as Lin-Manuel told us so eloquently in “Hamilton,” “Immigrants—they get the job done!” So I want to say that no matter where you’re from, we’re glad to have you here in the foothills. You found an incredible place to live and nobody is luckier than we mountain folk. Here are a few things you should know:
1. There’s an old adage that says if you don’t like the weather, just wait five minutes. It is true here. It snows every May. We get 70-degree days in January. The weather is fickle and ever-changing. And we kind of love it. Except that May snow. Nobody loves that. My friend Ginger wears snow boots every day in the winter because you just never know. And, be forewarned, every time it rains or snows in the most inconvenient of times, somebody will tell you, “We need the moisture.” And you will want to punch them (or is that just me?).
2. We don’t have an accent. All over the U.S., people say strange things or say them with a recognizable accent. I’m talking about Midwesterners saying “warsh,” or that southern drawl or harsh New York accent. In Colorado, we are the perfect intersection to form a lack of an accent. We don’t really have any funny words either. Except with our town names. Because Buena Vista, Del Norte, Montrose and Saguache are not pronounced how you think they should be.
3. The elk are cool. I see elk most every day and I still just watch them in awe. It’s ok to roll your window down and take pictures. We all do it. We love our elk.
4. The left lane is for passing. That is all.
5. When you go into Denver, Lakewood, Golden, Littleton or anywhere beyond, you are going “down the hill.”
6. Don’t feed the wildlife. It’s bad for them. Yes, it seems like a cool thing to have a deer eat a carrot from your hand. It might be cool for you, but it makes them unhealthy. They are wild and you should do everything you can to keep them that way.
7. Don’t leave your trash out (refer to tip 6)
8. You don’t have to be a skier or hiker or mountain biker or SUPer. But why wouldn’t you be? Because now you’re a Coloradan. (Or is it Coloradoan? I literally have no idea.)
