The State of Colorado


Colorado was by far the prettiest we’ve been to. I never appreciated just how much variety would be in that state. Most people have this idea that most of Colorado would be mountains, trees, and some snow. In fact, I would say the picturesque images of streams, snowcapped mountains, and thick pine forests constitute maybe only 40 percent of the state. Probably even less. In reality, there is so much more to the state than most people may realize. Much of it is grasslands, and in fact when we were driving through Kansas on our second or third day, and I asked from the back “when are we going to get to Colorado?” not realizing that we had already been in Colorado for more than an hour, and there was no change outside. We drove for another two hours after that before seeing any mountains. To give you an idea of the size of Colorado, (and they do say Colo-RAAA-do there) the state is slightly more than two times the size of Alabama or Georgia, more than three times the size of Louisiana, and about half the size of Texas. The amount of federal owned land in, say Alabama is around 1.6 percent, in Georgia its about 3.8 percent, in Louisiana it is 5.1 percent, and in Texas it is a whopping 1.9 percent. In Colorado, the Federal government owns roughly 36.6 percent of the land, most of which is national parks. The population here is massive though, and because of all the national and state parks, it is condensed in the more accessible parts of the state, which has a population of 5 and a half million people. To give some scale, Alabama has just over 4.8 million people, but they are spread throughout the state. Texas has a population of over 27 million. The population here has grown over 2 million people since 2012, when recreational Cannabis became legal to sell, it is also important to note than the crime rate also increased since that time… in fact almost doubled, but that may be just partly due to more people…

     But not all of the state is Mountains and grasslands. A good portion of Colorado is rocky scrubland, sunny meadows, and empty badlands. Remember that Colorado shares borders with Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Wyoming. That being said, the majority of notable united states ski resorts can be found in Colorado, and in one day, driving though the Rockies, which run through the middle of the State, over the course of just 5 hours, we traveled through 13 major ski towns and resorts, including names like Telluride, Copper Mountain, Aspen, Breckenridge, and Vail.
     It is also worth noting that the first town in Colorado is Kanrado... oh you sassy Calaradoins... Colaradians? Colarodites?

     

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