I hate Colorado because......

[Bonedalien]

Anyone know of any good places to trout fish in CO?

it would be harder to name a bad place to trout fish here. East slope,West slope, North and South CO all have primo waters. Just plan your trip where you want,and there will be a local shop nearby to give you all the help you need for that area.

 

[Bonedalien]

Couldn't be more proud to be born and raised in the great state of Colorado! Great thread! If people want to hate that's fine, please visit or move elsewhere!

5th generation here bro. You pretty much nailed it. I do enjoy helping visitors though. Watching the Rockies blow their minds never gets old,and helps remind me of what a truly special place it is i get to live in.

 

[geriggs]

I only hate how liberal and californicated it has become.... Not to mention over 3k I'm state taxes I pay a year. May retire in WY, other than that I love it here

 

[AK Troutbum]

Sounds like the state of Colorado may need to change it's name to Calirado.

 

[5MilesBack]

Sounds like the state of Colorado may need to change it's name to Calirado.

They tried that. There was an attempt to separate liberal Colorado from conservative Colorado, but putting Boulder and Denver in that box didn't take care of it all.

 

[Jimbo V]

I only hate how liberal and californicated it has become.... Not to mention over 3k I'm state taxes I pay a year. May retire in WY, other than that I love it here

From what I understand a lot of places in MT are overflowing with this as well. I have been looking to move further north to get away from this. Parts of WY are good but jobs are limited and schools for my kids aren't that great. I'm still looking......

 

[Short on cache]

5th generation here bro. You pretty much nailed it. I do enjoy helping visitors though. Watching the Rockies blow their minds never gets old,and helps remind me of what a truly special place it is i get to live in.

man I love Steamboat! I go there for the musicfest every year. We would probably retire there if it wasn't so expensive.

 

[bogeyboy555]

There was an interesting read about this this other day - I am trying to find the article and will post it....

1) Basically said that people are moving to Colorado with higher wages from states where the cost of living is higher (CA, WA, Chicago). Their buying power is stronger which drives up the cost of housing, but the local wages are not increasing. The legacy Centennials are cashing in on the haywire real estate prices, but the people who can't afford to buy a house are completely losing because of the lack of options to buy. The middle class who didn't own before about 4 years ago are screwed.

2) Tech companies with deep pockets are hiring and relocating people to Denver at an unbelievable rate. The same thing is happening in Austin Texas, and Charleston SC. For the companies, they can hire in these markets for a fractionally less than what it costs in San Francisco, NY, and DC. Makes sense, right?

The odd thing is - this is EXACTLY what I did. I got my MBA in California at a Bay Area school after growing up in Michigan - got into tech sales, and took my comp plan to the mountains. I moved to Colorado to escape the outrageous housing prices of Palo Alto and CA state income tax. I consider myself very fortunate, but this was my plan all along. One thing I have noticed is how awful the traffic along I-70 has become. I spend a ton of time in the mountains, and have gotten rid of my place in Frisco and am right smack in the middle of the buying process in Crested Butte for my Elk Hunting/ski house. Less crowds, less tourists. But all in I can get a nice place in Crested Butte, and a house in Golden, for 3/4 of the price of a 1,200 square foot hell hole in the Bay Area. I bowhunt, Golf, Ski, and Fly fish - where else would I go?

I personally feel that savvy individuals and smart companies are always looking to increase their buying power by having more cash on hand, and shopping in markets where they can get items on sale. Colorado for the last several years has been on the clearance rack.

Watch out Bozeman - you are next.

 

[5MilesBack]

I was watching House Hunters a couple months ago with a couple that moved to Denver. They were looking at average sized homes in the ~2000 sq ft range and the price was $800k and up. I just about fell out of my chair. They could get twice that house for less than half that price here in the Springs only 60 miles to the south. Our house in Monterey, CA was bigger and only nominally more than they're asking for those homes in Denver. That's crazy.

 

[Dougfir]

I just think it's kind of funny, 30 years ago the same thing was being said in Washington state and Idaho. It may still be said in those places, I don't know but, 20 some years ago I lived in the Seattle area and the big saying was "Don't Californicate Washington state". I was just on vacation down in California and it seemed like just about everybody I ran into that lived there was from somewhere else. I don't know if I ran into a single Californian, down in California, that was actually from California. Just saying.

By way of comparison, we vacation every couple years down in Florida and it seems like everybody I run into that lives down there is from New York State. Lol

Exactly. California is just the default-interloper state in the west. Here in the east, it's either NJ, or NY.

 

[CrzyTrekker]

The odd thing is - this is EXACTLY what I did. I got my MBA in California at a Bay Area school after growing up in Michigan - got into tech sales, and took my comp plan to the mountains. I moved to Colorado to escape the outrageous housing prices of Palo Alto and CA state income tax. I consider myself very fortunate, but this was my plan all along. One thing I have noticed is how awful the traffic along I-70 has become. I spend a ton of time in the mountains, and have gotten rid of my place in Frisco and am right smack in the middle of the buying process in Crested Butte for my Elk Hunting/ski house. Less crowds, less tourists. But all in I can get a nice place in Crested Butte, and a house in Golden, for 3/4 of the price of a 1,200 square foot hell hole in the Bay Area. I bowhunt, Golf, Ski, and Fly fish - where else would I go?

Yep, that's good financial strategy. Just getting the benefit of leverage.

 

[SHTF]

2008 we paid 220k for a decent 1982 year built 2500 square foot home. Done a lot of upgrades to it but I bet we are now over 350k for this place with the way the market has rebounded. We are glad we laid roots here. Its been a fantastic place to raise the kids and make a living. No complaints what so ever. We work hard and play hard and it has all paid off for us many times over.

 

[CrzyTrekker]

James, you live in a great area with great amenities, and are close to the mountains. Life is good!!!

 

[SHTF]

James, you live in a great area with great amenities, and are close to the mountains. Life is good!!!

yeah we are truly blessed to of gotten in on buying a home when we did. Its a fantastic area and 10 minute drive gaining elevation. Love it here.

 

[Broomd]

That's what I was thinking as well. What part of Idaho do you live in if you don't mind me asking? We lived in Idaho falls for about six months while my wife did a travel assignment.

MM, We live in a small town called Saint Maries. We're about an hour south of CDA and north of Moscow.
We have 30 acres here, some Scottish Highlander livestock, 50% heavily wooded, a pond...We've killed world class whitetail right on our place and some fine elk, too. Daughter got her cow elk ten minutes from the easy chair on our back acreage on Nov. 8th.

We moved here by design. Living in interior Alaska was wonderful, but the extremes got old. Idaho was really my only other consideration. Most other states have too many illegals, liberals, taxes....blah, blah blah.
It isn't perfect, the Native Americans are always wanting more like in many places, but overall it is damn fine. The only liberal presence here is from, you guessed it, Kalifornia transplants. They are few, but still a scourge..running for local office etc. trying to impart the sh*t they left behind to here.

Couldn't be more proud to be born and raised in the great state of Colorado! Great thread! If people want to hate that's fine, please visit or move elsewhere!

Ignorance is bliss...enjoy. You'll be glad to know that I won't visit or spend another dime there. Fine state--with some fine people still there, but overall she circled the drain long ago...

 

[toddb]

The summers in Colorado are absolutely great. I can run chain saw , build a deck and do all kinds of outdoor activities and not sweat to death. Here in central Wisconsin you run the a/c almost 24/7. My son does not even need a/c in his mobile. It gets a little uncomfortable but not bad and cools off in evening very nice. He does not even have a screen door and he hardly has any bugs come in house. I live in town in Wis. And I have 1000 mosquitoes and moths trying to get in after dark.

 

[xziang]

We wanted out of the Midwest and looked at Colorado (actually went there and drove the entire state) in 1997 prior to moving to Alaska for ten years, and ultimately Idaho for the last ten years.

Colorado *was* a great state, it is now a microcosm of California with loonies increasingly running the political system.
Property is expensive and greenies are doing their diligence to trash the sportsman opportunities there.
No disrespect to those there--it is gorgeous--but for someone looking to move West, there are better all around alternatives!

Agree 100% I almost moved out there in 2000 and wish I would have however demographic has changed and infiltrated by CA ideology. LOL heck I'm sure pot smoking is back on the courthouse lawn in boulder. (I'm guilty of still enjoying pearl st.)

 

[gmajor]

I've lived in both CA and CO. Coloradans were pouring into CA for years and more recently it's been a tide going both ways. Used to be "oh I am going to move out to CA!" now it's "damn Californians are coming here ruining it for us!", even though half are from the midwest to begin with.

That said I'm not necessarily endorsing CA over CO, as I would prefer to live in the latter, but the feeding frenzy around the Californians moving to Colorado schpeel has been hilarious.

 

[5MilesBack]

but the feeding frenzy around the Californians moving to Colorado schpeel has been hilarious.

Those of us that live here aren't laughing.

 

[gmajor]

Those of us that live here aren't laughing.

I was, when I lived there, even though I didn't like the direction a lot of things were going. Might be back there for good in about 16 months (not that I'm counting), depending. It's a wonderful state. How quickly the same folks (certainly not the demographic on here) went from adoration to hatred for Californians was amusing, even if I didn't like the end result. Life is either a tragedy or comedy depending on how you look at it. I guess in this case I decided to go with the latter.