BarbaraAnne
Recycles dryer sheets
- Joined
- May 23, 2006
- Messages
- 144
We absolutely love Colorado. Everything about it...well except the long winters, but if we are retired we can travel in the winter to warmer places or just stay indoors and relax. (Kind of like living in Texas in the summer except in reverse). We especially love the trees and views.
We are getting ready to retire in a couple of years and Colorado has been at the top of our list. Second choice is Texas Hill Country near Austin. Anyway, we were visiting Colorado to try and narrow down the areas we were interested in last week and were absolutely shocked to find tens of thousands of acres of beautiful scenery dying. The lodge pole pines which dominate the landscape along I-70 from Denver into Summit County are red/orange and literally dying from a beetle infestation. It's the result of drought and warmer than normal winters. There is no solution and it is really tragic. Everywhere you look vast quantities of beautiful pines are dying. This is not in a small area, it's absolutely everywhere. We were truly depressed.
This really makes us reconsider our plans. Dead trees will need to be removed which will drastically change the landscape that we love. It will be expensive for homeowners and frankly the result will be rather unsightly for a long time (20+years). I'm sure homes and towns will lose much value. The infestation is moving toward Denver and will destroy the trees on the front range up through Rocky Mountain National Park, Fort Collins and Wyoming.
Very sadly...back to the drawing board....
We are getting ready to retire in a couple of years and Colorado has been at the top of our list. Second choice is Texas Hill Country near Austin. Anyway, we were visiting Colorado to try and narrow down the areas we were interested in last week and were absolutely shocked to find tens of thousands of acres of beautiful scenery dying. The lodge pole pines which dominate the landscape along I-70 from Denver into Summit County are red/orange and literally dying from a beetle infestation. It's the result of drought and warmer than normal winters. There is no solution and it is really tragic. Everywhere you look vast quantities of beautiful pines are dying. This is not in a small area, it's absolutely everywhere. We were truly depressed.
This really makes us reconsider our plans. Dead trees will need to be removed which will drastically change the landscape that we love. It will be expensive for homeowners and frankly the result will be rather unsightly for a long time (20+years). I'm sure homes and towns will lose much value. The infestation is moving toward Denver and will destroy the trees on the front range up through Rocky Mountain National Park, Fort Collins and Wyoming.
Very sadly...back to the drawing board....