Culture Shock a Mile High
After years living among the neon glow of the Vegas Strip and the scorched, surreal sprawl of desert housing tracts, my husband and I were ready for a change. Las Vegas had started to feel like Mars with valet parking; brutally hot and short on soul. We longed for seasons, a real city, and a connection to nature, but I also wanted something more personal: a reset. I imagined that Colorado might make me calmer, sturdier, less cosmetic, more capable. We pictured long walks beneath towering pines, fresh snow outside our window, and spontaneous afternoons on Nordic ski trails. We left our sleek contemporary home behind and downsized to rediscover something more grounded in Castle Pines, Colorado. I couldn’t wait to become a Colorado person.
As we drove past Vail on I-70, I snapped a picture of the dashboard like a tourist, watching the elevation climb. It felt symbolic, rising into a new phase of life. Then we got out of the car and were immediately swarmed by bees. My husband was stung twice, cursing in Italian. Later that week, he killed a rattlesnake in the front yard. It was like a Puccini opera watching him dance around it with a broom handle. I wondered if we’d traded one inhospitable landscape for another.
It was magical just to have tall evergreens in the backyard. We loved spotting deer, rabbits, prairie dogs, and coyotes—well, maybe not the coyotes—and marveled at the bison nearby. I was falling in love with Colorado, but it seemed determined to remind me that nature came with terms and conditions. Our dreams of attracting hummingbirds ended at a bear safety lecture. The ranger, dead serious, said, “Get rid of your birdfeeders and don’t leave your garbage cans out!” Then he added that bears can smell someone cooking salmon from five miles away. I now sprint around the house closing windows every time I cook fish, picturing a bear pawing at the door like it has a reservation on OpenTable.
That became the pattern of our first year: every Colorado fantasy arrived with a waiver. I wanted the move to transform me into someone outdoorsy, breezy, and ruggedly competent, but mostly I felt thrilled, humbled, and underqualified. Colorado was gorgeous, yes, but it also seemed to be conducting a background check.
Locals talked about the Front Range. I thought it was an oven setting. They referred to mountain roads as passes, and I could not figure out how many there were or why everyone was so emotionally invested in them. When people raved about an Epic Pass, I just nodded wisely, assuming it was the one scenic route to rule them all. Turns out, it is a ski pass—an actual season ticket to snow. Then I saw an event called First Ass up the Pass and figured it meant hauling your own butt over the finish line. Nope. You needed a literal donkey. Every conversation reminded me how much I did not know. Eventually, I found myself laughing just to keep up.
Everyone was... nice. Suspiciously nice. We were used to brusque New Yorkers and transient Vegas types. I kept waiting for them to crack. They didn’t—but they do try to break the sound barrier on I-25 every day, so maybe that’s where the pent-up energy goes.
We used to dress up for dinner in Vegas. Here, it’s muddy boots straight to the brewhouse, where fleece passes as formalwear. Matching your purse to your shoes? Laughable. Matching your jacket to your precipitation probability? Essential.
In September, when it was still hot, I asked a cashier when it would snow. He cheerfully said, “Oh, it’ll come.” Four storms hit before Halloween. At REI—a wilderness-themed department store with a rock-climbing wall and luggable loos for camping, we bought snowshoes and discovered outdoor clothing with more certifications than a Navy SEAL: waterproof, windproof, mudproof. I didn’t see anything bulletproof, but it wouldn’t have surprised me.
We hired a handyman to work on our house, but everyone else seemed to know how to repair anything and had toolkits that looked like NASA ground control. They washed their own cars, mowed their own lawns, painted and prepped like they’d been raised by HGTV. In Las Vegas, you hired people to do everything. I admired these strong Colorado women. They split firewood, hauled mulch, and seemed completely unfazed by things that intimidated me. At one Airbnb, seeing us struggle, a waitress carried our luggage up three flights of stairs in one trip. I silently resolved to start lifting heavier weights.
Anxious to continue running, I signed up for a trail race. While I struggled through the 5K, others cruised through the 10K, 25K, and 50K like it was a morning jog. It was the hardest race I’d ever done—steep, rocky, and wild. I wiped out mid-run, flew like Supergirl, then popped up before someone could trample me. I earned my badge into the Colorado Kick-Ass Club... and quietly resigned.
One morning, I took our tiny blind foster dog outside to find myself face to face with an elk. The neighbor, unfazed, said, “Isn’t that magical?” I nearly peed. Everyone here had big muscular dogs, the kind that looked as if they paid property taxes and carried avalanche beacons. Whenever I mentioned our Bichon Frise foster, someone asked, “I don’t know what that is. Can it do a fourteener?” Apparently, becoming a Colorado person required bigger dogs, stronger nerves, and a desire to conquer mountains.
People decorated for Christmas the second Thanksgiving ended. Our window view looked like a personal Rockefeller Center. I wondered why the lights stayed up after New Year’s—turns out, it’s tradition until the Stock Show in mid-January. Cattle still ruled the West. Yeehaw!
February brought feet of snow and teens for temperatures. Neighbors with huge snow blowers seemed oblivious to property lines; our sidewalk was often clean before we were even awake. Either they were saints or just loved their big machines. Winter here was different than what we knew back east—dry, sunny, with people wearing shorts year-round. Colorado had a funny way of turning everything I thought I knew upside down—including winter.
In late February, we were finally heading to Frisco to fulfill one of the dreams that had lured us to Colorado: Nordic skiing. Luckily, we had scheduled a brush-up lesson, or we would not have known to stay home. The ski instructor called to cancel because of whiteout conditions. Evidently, the pleasant weather in our neck of the woods was not on speaking terms with the mountains.
March meant trail closures for “mud season” and nesting eagles. We were advised not to disturb them during their... intimate time. Apparently, it’s rude to interrupt an eagle date.
Come summer, we skipped buying a lawnmower and hired a local teen service. Three polite high school boys showed up. One gently relocated a snail, whispering, “Hey, cute little guy, we gotta move you so you don’t get run over.” I almost cried. Not because of the snail, but because it was another reminder that kindness seemed to be woven into life here. Even rugged mountain men-in-training are suckers for snail welfare.
In June, locals complained about the heat—at 85 degrees. We laughed at the simultaneous hum of all the air conditioners. Clearly, they’d never lived in Vegas. Later that month, we left home on a beautiful 80-degree day and drove through a rogue snowstorm on the way to Crested Butte.
July 4th came and went without fireworks: Fire danger was too high. Instead, we watched fire mitigating goats grazing on public lands. Colorado: where even goats have jobs.
We hiked to the top of Winter Park and watched mountain bikers get off the gondola and launch downhill at warp speed. Adrenaline junkies wore enough body armor to survive a medieval battle just in case they got “pierced” by a tree limb. Beginner trails had canyon drop-offs and boulders the size of kitchen islands. We stuck to flat paths in town.
The local magazine, 5280, is not an area nor ZIP code, but Denver’s elevation. I now knew why this was the Mile High City. I was starting to speak the language. Stand back!
One August morning, a rattlesnake joined us for breakfast on the patio. I ran screaming into the house. My husband called the number on a local snake removal sign. A polite thirteen-year-old answered and said, “We don’t take poisonous snakes. Our parents won’t let us.” He added, “If there’s no food, it’ll move on.” I pictured a league of tween snake wranglers with curfews.
My hairdresser, who wore sundresses and heels, looked as though she’d be more at home at a wine bar than a forest. She proudly told me her husband surprised her with a camping trip, complete with horses and a chainsaw for firewood. He even shot and quartered an elk on site. “We cooked it right there,” she said, beaming while expertly trimming my blonde layers. “You never get tired of elk.”
Several years later, I still have not become a Colorado person. I don’t understand the obsession with award-winning breweries, why people eat so much beef, or why anyone would voluntarily ride a bike off a mountain. I still approach wildlife as if it has a lawyer, and I remain suspicious of any trail labeled “beginner.” But I’ve come to love the silhouette of the Rockies, the ever-changing cloud formations, and the quietly capable people who define life here. The reset I wanted did happen, just not in the way I expected. It turns out I did not have to become a Colorado person to feel at home.
Colorado did not make me rugged. It made me willing to begin anew.
Gretchen Roselli is a Colorado-based writer and playwright whose work has appeared in The Colorado Sun, OnStage Colorado, bioStories, Red Rock Life, and Hormones Matter. Her writing explores relationships, reinvention, and the humor hiding in life’s messier moments. She lives in Colorado with her husband and foster dogs who have strong opinions on dialogue. gretchenroselli.com
