Living in Colorado is a bit weird, because it’s easy to overlook a lot of the natural beauty you see every day and it just becomes part of the background.
Every once in a while I’ll be running an errand and will have to pause for a second and just go “holy shit, the mountains look gorgeous today.”
My 16-year-old son never wants to go out of the house but he was talking about wanting to go to Omega Mart in Vegas. So I booked us a flight into Denver. Yeah it’s an 11-hour drive even after we fly. But I get to drive through the mountains, and I don’t live anywhere near the mountains. And I fucking love the mountains. And all of those miles go an a rental car.
I grew up in the US West and I was able to spend the last couple of days in the Smoky mountains, but there just isn’t anything that really satisfies that mountain itch in the eastern us. Enjoy what you have.
Ai…
Probably I checked with an ai image detector (I don’t know if there are good ones I should use) it said that ml detector had a 93 procent suspision on the whole image not cropped, but I think it just doesn’t like memes because this
had a 76 procent detection from the same ml detector, but on a regular photo I took only 35 procent, but tbf the image was processed by gcam and one of the issues was skin too smooth/perfect.
When I visited the Grand Canyon, I set up my tripod so I could take a timelapse of the sunset. I figured it would be amazing in that setting.
And… it was just like the first picture. Mild, delicate colors, nothing like what I was hoping for. Though if you like watching the shadows grow and move over the canyon, it’s still good for that.
I suppose the hidden bonus was that by having my phone sitting on the tripod for hours, it meant I spent that time enjoying the scenery and talking to fellow travelers, which was cool.
Not American – can someone explain the state of Colorado to me? It looks like your own little Switzerland
The eastern half is flat and empty. The western half is mountainous like Switzerland, but also pretty empty. Most of the people live in a strip of cities along the foothills.
The mountains are impressive and the elevation gets nearly as high as the highest point in the alps. What’s weird about Colorado is that even the lowest elevation areas are really high up. Denver is at the base of the mountains, but is at 5280ft/1610m. For comparison, most of Switzerland’s cities are below 1500ft/500m.
Definitely not little, it’s actually the 8th-largest state of the USA, and larger than many countries (it’s a little smaller than Italy). It’s a weird one, because the West and East side are totally different: mountainous on the West side, flat in the East. The population lives mostly on the border between the two side, is very highly educated, mostly liberal for the USA, and is absolutely obsessed with the outdoors.
The mountain side boasts some of the most gorgeous landscapes on Earth. The orogeny that led to their creation was rapid, unusual (in that it was mid-craton and not on the edge), and recent, so that they are jagged and rough and wild. If you’d like to get an idea, just look up “San Juan mountains” in your image search engine of choice.
, it’s actually the 8th-largest state of the USA, and larger than many countries (it’s a little smaller than Italy).
I think this is something that many Europeans seem unable to grasp. The US is massive
I feel like you know more about my home than I do, thanks for the educational write up
You are very welcome and thank you! It used to be my home, too, and I absolutely love love love it. One day, I’ll be back and the remaining 23 14ers will be very afraid!
Less chocolate. More weed. Otherwise accurate.
Yes I can confirm that it’s true, I made this observation last week when I had a view of a gorgeous sunset behind something simple as a Walmart parking lot! The skies are always beautiful here though, so you could say the same about any business here tbf. I love this place.
Magic can appear in the most mundane of places if you look for it.
Try their jalapeno cheese dip and you’ll meet the gods. Then tell us that place is mundane.
Edit: I’m assuming whoever took this pic was going in for that dip.
The difference? Photoshop.
Nah, the real difference? Pollution. In general, airborne pollution up high reflects red light and absorbs blue light. Vivid sunrises and sunsets are often found near cities for a reason.
could also be just natural dust, like in germany we sometimes get sahara winds that make for beautiful sunsets
Definitely not, Colorado sunsets are wild. Here’s one from a few weeks ago, photo is literally blown out the colors are so wild, it looked much crazier in person.
And this happens all the time.
Edit: the hdr didn’t come through on some of these, like the second to last was SO MUCH MORE COLOR than that photo shows.
Can confirm, I used to live there and the spectacular views just stepping outside are what I miss.
All the Southwest is like this.
Totally amazing sunset…in the Wal-Mart parking lot.
Hmmmm I love when the land turns into a crisp silhouette like that
Yes, exactly. And look where you took those beautiful photos.
Yeah the meme is incredibly accurate. But it also makes sense because aerosols above cities make the sky redder for sunsets. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-smog-creates-beautiful-sunsets/
For example this one is out in the mountains and the sunset isn’t nearly as orange or red.
Niceee
Interesting how orange it is, here in my city in Australia I feel we get really vibrant pink skies.
That means you have less pollution. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-smog-creates-beautiful-sunsets/
Yeah it’s the opposite, the photos never show the true craziness of the real thing . And sunrises are even more intense . I saw some crazy shit on the school bus on the way to school back in the day .
Na, I live here. It just be like this
This happens all over the Southwest, it really depends on patchiness of cloud cover. Amazing sunsets don’t care if you’re in the parking lot of Wal-Mart or out somewhere with trees.
