I lived in Fort Collins, Colorado for a couple of years, ending in 1995. Everybody bragged about the Wild West legacy of self-reliance and ruggedness, but I saw very little of that along the Front Range.
Yes, a lot of Coloradans hated newcomers, Texans included. They had a joke that Oklahoma was the only trailer park to become a state.
Fort Collins is a college town. They had a LOT of problems with drugs, alcohol, teen pregnancy, welfare mooching, etc. A lot of the younger crowd sat around in coffee shops and farmed attitudes.
Some of them looked down on me (friends of a younger BF) because I was in the straight world and had a regular job, but I also noticed that they were always up for bumming a meal or $$ or a place to crash off me.
They usually didn't have enough money for their own rent or food, but always had enough for anothe tattoo, piercing, or dose of recreational drugs.
In short, I was not all that impressed. Ut was an expensive place to live, too.
I was shocked to see “Don't Californicate Colorado” bumper-stickers. At the time, California was still the "Promised Land". I had run out of money before I got to CA, so I stopped to make some money. ( I never made it to the left coast 'cause i figgered that there was something to the ads :"to get a good job, get a good education", so i went back to school.
My recollections of Denver and environs are that it was beautiful. Driving into the Rockies made me understand the meaning of the word ‘majestic’.
I'm sad that colorado got californicated.
“They all move to Colorado in the 90’s and look at it “
Nonsense! I used to have to do business in The People’s Republic of Bolder a lot earlier than the 90’s. Berkeley has nothing on Boulder when to comes to the “practice of Marxism.” Boulder has it down pat! I will wager that Colorado is just like California in that the rural areas are still nice places to live and where conservative values prevail. All states problems stem from their “major cities.”