For 18 years of my life, I grew up seeing Pikes Peak, Mt. Evans and many other over-14,000 feet mountains whenever I looked to the west. Because I saw this almost every day of my childhood, I became used to seeing such formidable things in my daily skyline; however, when I moved to New York for school, the mountains were replaced by skyscrapers instead. While I do absolutely enjoy the New York skyline (and I hope I'll never lose the magical feeling I get every time I see it when I'm heading into the city), I have to admit that I now see the mountains differently whenever I come home.

At school, I have friends who have seen "mountains" but have never seen the Rocky Mountains. After I spent a couple months with these friends, I headed home for the first time at Thanksgiving, excited for a break. When I got there, however, I looked to the west and saw something I've never seen before—my home state's landscape. I saw wide, open plains. I saw an amazing, truly incredible, never-ending range of mountains that stretched across the land behind it. I was looking at the mountains, and my home state's landscape, not as a Colorado native who had grown used to this view, but as one of my friends from school.

Just like how I had grown up with the Rocky Mountains in the background of my day-to-day life, I had grown up with my mom always telling me how she never got used to seeing them, whether she was driving home from a meeting or going up to ski. I couldn't relate to this feeling regarding the Rockies; ironically enough, I had only experienced this same disbelief whenever I would walk into the main terminal of Grand Central. However, that all changed when I came home. I started to see the Rockies the same way my mom did—I couldn't believe that I lived so close to such a geographical phenomenon. Instead of seeing a constant aspect of my life almost as a wallpaper or a computer screensaver, I saw a living painting in an extreme scale.

I ended up being right in how I thought my friends would react to the mountains. When my friends—who were visiting me—saw them for the first time, there were a lot of gasps, "oh my gosh's" and a couple "They're so beautiful's"; and, I have to admit, I was right along side them, thinking the same thing. While I do like to think that the mountains are just a normal part of my life (like being used to them is something to brag about), my time away has given me the chance to truly appreciate such purple mountain majesties. Now, whenever I come home, I look around in awe at one of the many things that makes my home state special.