Questions Asked By Tourists Visiting Colorado

I love living in Colorado. It is a wonderful state to live in. Vacationing is easy. Just pull into your own driveway, take the phone off the hook, put up a tent in the yard and technically, you're camping. Seriously, though, we have trouble taking a vacation to a place that's too close by. Driving thirty minutes to camp or stay in a hotel feels a little weird. So, folks in Denver like to think they'll retire to Colorado Springs. Colorado Springs folks think about retiring to Buena Vista or Leadville. I'm not sure where the folks from Leadville will retire to, but with the winters up there, I bet it will be someplace warmer or even tropical.

In honor of the start of summer break and the commencing of vacations, I thought I'd put up a list of things tourists have said while visiting Colorado or that people have asked Coloradoans when they defy reason and leave the state.

1. What time of year/At what altiitude do the deer turn into elk?
2. Where do you put the moguls in the summer?
3. You don't ski? I thought everyone in Colorado skied! (also applies to wearing cowboy hats)
4. Y'all got paved roads in Colorado? (not yet, but Woodrow Wilson mentioned we'd get some soon)
5. Do you own a horse?
6. Do you ski to school? (also applies to sled dogs)
7. Where do Rocky Mountain Oysters come from? Is there a lot of water in Colorado?
   
8. Do you need oxygen tanks to live there?
   
9. You live in an igloo right? (Bonus: How do you walk around your house without slipping?)
   
10. So what's South Park like? (Tell them Casa Bonita is real and they won't believe you.)
11. Why don't trees grow on top of your mountains?

The photo at right is from the top of Mt. Evans west of Denver. It's a bit of a read, but the details are riveting, especially when you count the screws used to mount the sign. There's a reason they did that.

For those who want to look more like a local or who really want to know what the answers are, I've put them down below.

1. Deer and elk look similar, with antlers, snouts and four hooves, but trust me, they are two very different species. Elk tastes better, in my opinion.
2. Moguls are turned inside out, shaken hard, and put on a plane from Aspen back to L.A. ...Wait, that's movie moguls. Ski moguls are mounds of snow that are created by skiers as they carve down the slopes.
3. Although I haven't seen a survey of state residents and skiing, I'll speculate that a surprising percentage of residents do not ski, and fewer still are those who have skied in the last three years. There are a lot of reasons for this, but lift tickets are horribly expensive, I-70 is terribly crowded, and we keep thinking we'll go next year.
4. Duh. These are likely the same people that ask if we ride horses everywhere or if we still fight Indians, both of which questions showed up on a "dumb questions" page online as legitimate, documentable inquiries.
5. See explanation 4 above. No, we do not, although it's practically required for someone to live in Golden. Do I have a cowboy hat and boots? Ain't tellin'.
   
6. See explanation 3 above. Skiing to school is not practical unless you live at the top of a mountain, and then you've got other problems, like lightning, wind, and a dog that refuses to go outside in either, remembering that the last time it did, it nearly died. If you tried to ski to school (without the aid of a snowmobile or truck known as skijoring), you'd have to cross-country ski, and then we'd accuse you of losing your mind.
7. No, there is not a lot of water in Colorado, which is why we have lawyers who litigate exclusively over water rights. The lack of an ocean and the lack of a local delicacy prompted a joke that's groin--er, grown into a novelty dish. I will not mention the ingredients, but you can read more about Rocky Mountain oysters here.
8. Contrary to all the press our altitude receives, people from below 2,000 feet ASL who take it easy the first 24 hours or so can acclimate fairly well if they drink plenty of water. People who don't are soon usually flat on their backs complaining about the lack of oxygen. That's when we bring them a tank and tell them not to drink alcohol while they're here. We breathe just like they do, only better.
9. Another Duh. Although, we have winter festivals with snow carving and such. How do we keep from slipping? Seal skin.
10. South Park is a big, empty broad expanse of Kansas that we imported to break up the monotony of all those mountains. There is no town called South Park, unless you count Fairplay's effort to capitalize on the show's popularity. It is brown (or white) and mostly treeless. Antelope do play, but mostly they just stand around, gawking at the tourists.
11. Above 11,200 feet or so, trees do not grow in Colorado. This is called timberline. It is too cold, snowy, dry and dark for trees to grow above that threshold. Alpine tundra is beautiful and has small wildflowers that manage to thrive in that climate, including my favorite, the Columbine.

Like I said, I love Colorado. I plan to live here the rest of my life. I've seen nearly everything in the state, so if you're coming to Colorado, give me a shout and I'll pass along what I know.