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#coloRADo #neature #hiking #exploreCO #coloradical
Recognize any of those hashtags? If you’ve got friends who live in Colorado, then I’m sure you do. Every Instagram they post from their beloved state will be littered with hashtags similar to the above.
I’m not in the business of bashing cities. I love visiting spots in the vast expanse of land we call a country and my trip to Denver over Thanksgiving last year was no exception. I got over to Breckenridge for a few days, saw the sights in downtown Denver, and in general had a grand old time.
I would never live there, of course, because I really didn’t think it was all that great compared to Chicago but I definitely had fun. Natives to Colorado are not the problem. It’s the transplants that feel the need to document everything they’re doing out west that I have a problem with. There is a certain kind of person that moves to Colorado and that person is not me.
It’s almost as if the residents of The Centennial State are brainwashed when they inevitably move to one of four cities: Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, or Colorado Springs.
They are delusional, paranoid attention seekers. They tell themselves that as Coloradans if they don’t get a picture posted of them hiking, skiing, walking their stupid fucking dog, or seeing a Phish show at Red Rocks that the rest of the universe will forget about the fact that they do in fact live there.
Can we all as a collective just agree that being outdoorsy is a huge pain in the ass? Show me something fun that you can do whilst hiking and I’ll show you my living room, complete with air conditioning, a television, and snacks.
I mean seriously. For fuck’s sake, guys. Is there a quota in your lease agreement when you move to Colorado that says you have to post at least one picture on Instagram per week of a mountain or some awesome hiking trail that you stumbled upon?
I can understand why kids my age flock to Colorado. You can go from the mountain to a chic bar in downtown Denver in a matter of hours or go camping in the summertime and feel like you’re a million miles away from civilization but guess what?
Going skiing. Heading out for a daytime hike through a mountainous region. It’s all a fucking process. All of those activities seem fun in theory, but when you actually execute them, you realize that it’s a lot of work. A goddamn hassle.
I’ve been to Colorado several times in my life. In order to really make a ski trip worth your while, you either need to rent a ski-in/ski-out or wake up at the ass-crack of dawn and drive an hour or two up to a mountain.
After that, you’re going to need to watch how many apres-ski beers you have because you’ve got to be able to drive home at the end of that long day on the slopes. You’re probably saying to yourself “But John, what about the camping? What about all of the other great outdoor activities you can participate in when you live in coloRADo?”
I would rather get a root canal than go camping. Camping fucking sucks and so does hiking. If I want to workout I’m going to the gym. I’m not hiking up a mountain and getting assaulted by the elements and bugs that I don’t know the name of.
I can admit that I’m probably a tad biased when it comes to Colorado because I am not outdoorsy in any way, shape, or form. I can also admit that for some people those activities that I’ve just bashed are fun. There is no need to post a picture of said activities every goddamn weekend, though. It’s just unnecessary and the hashtag #coloRADo has been way overused at this point. Get it together, Coloradans. .
Image via Unsplash
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jduda@grandex.co
I was gonna comment and defend Colorado because I love that state, but then I realized everything I wanted to say would just make me sound more like an asshole. I’ll take this as constructive criticism and I’ll try to be better
So uh Duda, whatever happened with that girl and her parents’ lake house?
$20 says she wasn’t into raw dogging.
I’m taking his silence on the topic as things are going very well and he is choosing to be respectful and not write about it on this site…or the opposite of that.
You gotta drop this raw dogging bit- it was one article that was half a joke
I am all in on support for Duda’s raw dogging tendencies
Duda’s intentions are 99.1% pure
I legitimately turn down sex if a girl makes me wear a condom – doesn’t do anything for me
I stopped reading at “turn down sex.”
I thought you were dead.
Why do I get the feeling you’re a Grandex employee trolling us?
About a dozen kids from my hometown each made a big deal about how they were moving to Denver to “get away from our hometown” and “start a new life”. But now they just all spend their time together hanging out with kids they’ve known since kindergarten.
Point Place was sweet though
I have to imagine this is pretty common place. A few years ago there was what seemed like a mass exodus from the Chicago suburbs to Denver. And it’s the same thing. All these kids that moved there just hang out together. Which I get. But at the same time, don’t feed me a line of bullshit about “getting away” when you’re just smoking weed with kids you went to grade school with.
I had 7 or 8 friends move from Chicago to Denver as well. It all makes sense. Chicago/the Midwest sucks so hard.
I disagree on your sentiments about Chicago/the midwest. But to each their own.
Came into this thinking I’d totally agree with you and your Colorado hot takes, but nah. The outdoors are awesome. I get hating people who sit at the bar filtering pics they took on their 30 minute walk outside, but it’s hard to beat getting a little fouled by a campfire and waking up in a hammock.
As much as I agree with you, I can’t hate on people who don’t like the outdoors. Different strokes for different folks. And all the great things I love about CO definitely involve being outside for extended amounts of time
More space for us I guess
There’s nothing I’d rather go through “the hassle” to do than ski. I maintain there’s no better feeling than first tracks on a powder day, and there’s no better drink than your first apres beer
Agreed. It only takes me an hour on an average weekend (leaving early, but I want to get first chair anyway) to get to my ski area. That’s less time than I spend waiting on my girlfriend to get ready for brunch. Skiing/hiking/camping is about the only reason I ever use my car in Colorado since I live in Denver and not in the burbs.
Always dreamed of pulling off last call/first chair, but alas, my postgrad self can’t hang like that anymore
Great take, quite possibly the v best take tbh. Idk if I’ve ever liked your tent more than I do now.
My buddy moved to Colorado because “dude, pot is legal there, man”
Now he works at a dispensary and rents a room from a guy with a double wide trailer.
I got a 3 day maximum in Colorado before I punch a hippie or my inexperience with snow driving causes me to drive off a cliff
I feel like we get it worst here in KC, everyone talks about how awesome Denver is all the time.
Agree 100% and I know far more people from the KC area who have moved to Denver than any other city.
I pick KC over Denver every single time. Besides the people being 1000% more tolerable it doesn’t take 2 hours to drive anywhere you want to go.
Yeah, it takes about 8 hrs in the car to get anywhere decent.
Agree man KC is the shit, I moved here a year ago and wish I could’ve done it sooner.
It is pretty awesome though. I’d probably move there if there weren’t so many hippies and I had the balls to leave family and have to make a new circle of friends.
Can’t believe I’m typing this, but I have to agree with you on this one.
I generally disagree with everything you say or do Duda, but as a Colorado native I would like to personally thank you for this fine piece of work. If this article only stops one person from moving here then I will consider you the greatest wordsmith of our generation.