Colorado, the Red State
by Kalarad Bergen
http://www.coloradomountain.com
Colorado is surrounded by seven other states and is situated
in the midwest. It is an extremely beautiful state of
mountains, lakes and pine forests with a climate that is
fairly extreme - it has very cold winters and lots of snow
and very hot and arid summers. The winter months are great
for those who like winter sports as there is great skiing
and snow boarding to be had in Aspen. Whilst in the summer
there is hiking, camping, rafting, caving and
mountaineering. For mountaineers there are great climbing
opportunities in the canyons with a great diversity of rock
formations.
The permanent residents of Colorado do not find the
situation so lovely as the tourists. The reason being that
the extreme climates in the state cause great hardships to
its residents. Such combination of scenic beauty is quite
rare in other places indeed. The winter presents a
difficult time when people have to do a lot of shoveling
outside their homes to be able to drive their cars out
besides the dangerous conditions for driving caused by
incessant snowing. Colorado's people retiring to such
milder climate states as Georgia and Florida are quite
common.
Colorado might be a difficult place to live in but the
people take pride in their state. They try their best to
protect the beauty and purity of Colorado. They refused to
hold the Olympics in 1976, as they feared that there might
be harm to their state. They realized that there might be
contamination, population boom and a financial load on the
state.
Colorado means 'colored red' and indeed the land and many of
the rock formations are a rich terra cotta color. It has a
rich history and mixture of cultural influences - from the
original native Americans to the Anglo-Europeans who settled
in the north of the state to the Hispanic Europeans who
settled in southern Colorado. Indeed many of the place
names are Spanish - Pueblo, San Luis and the name of the
state itself Colorado, which means to blush in Spanish.
Colorado is associated with many activities and myths. The
1800s saw a heavy rush of prospectors of gold. Many gold
and silver mining towns came up during this period. You can
also see a piece of history by visiting the ghost towns of
the early settlers. Living in Colorado in this period,
particularly in small towns, must have surely been very
tough indeed. The atmosphere must have surely been of wild
Wild West as seen in Hollywood movies.
But it is not all mountains cowboys and wild west. The Rocky
mountains are located in the west of the state. In the
North-west there is cattle country, and the east is
more urban - Denver, the state capital is situated here.
Denver is a city of some 500,000 people (within city limits)
but more than 2.1 million people in the metropolitan area.
It's a relatively young city being established as a result
of the gold strike but is known for its great restaurants
and museums. Denver is home to the longest street in
America - Colfax Avenue and Denver also claims that one of
its citizens, Louis Bellast, invented the cheeseburger in
1935.
All in all, Colorado offers a lot to the potential visitor
from sophisticated city living to the land of the wild, wild
west. The big skies and vast countryside means that it is
not somewhere that's easily forgotten.
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