I was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and no matter how many places I live, Kentucky will always have my heart.

Since then, life has taken me to some very different corners of the country. I’ve lived in Alexandria, Louisiana. Destin, Florida. Corpus Christi, Texas. And now, Evergreen, Colorado.

If you dropped pins on all of those places, the map would look a little random.

But maybe that’s part of why I’ve become so fascinated by places.

Not just visiting them.

Living in them.

Because visiting somewhere and actually building a life there are two very different things.

And Evergreen might be the best example of that.

Before moving to Colorado, I had the version of Colorado in my head that I think a lot of people have.

Mountains.

Snow.

Ski resorts.

Cozy little towns.

People who voluntarily wake up before sunrise to climb a mountain and somehow consider that relaxing.

Some of that is accurate.

Some of it definitely isn’t.

And living in Evergreen is its own very particular version of Colorado.

I May Live in the Mountains, but I’m Still a Southern Girl

Living in Colorado hasn’t changed where I come from.

I will always be a Southern girl.

There are certain things that stay with you.

The food.

The traditions.

The way people gather.

The sound of summer evenings.

The smell of rain when everything has been baking in the heat all day.

Magnolia trees.

Humidity so thick it practically becomes a member of the family.

There are things about the South I don’t miss, of course. I don’t particularly need to feel like I’m walking into a wet blanket every time I step outside in July.

But Kentucky is different for me.

Kentucky is home in a way I don’t think another place can ever completely replace.

It’s where my story started.

And even though my life looks very different now, there will probably always be a part of me that feels connected to it.

Maybe that’s one of the strangest things about moving.

You don’t necessarily leave a place behind.

Sometimes you just carry pieces of it with you.

So… What Is It Actually Like to Live in Evergreen?

Evergreen feels a little strange in the best possible way.

You can be close enough to Denver and everything that comes with a major city, then head home and suddenly feel like you’ve gone somewhere completely different.

The roads start winding.

The houses spread farther apart.

The mountains get bigger.

The pine trees seem to go on forever.

And wildlife becomes significantly less theoretical.

Things that once would have made me stop the car and take twenty pictures can eventually become part of an ordinary Tuesday.

That might be one of the strangest things about living somewhere beautiful.

Eventually, the extraordinary becomes everyday life.

You can be surrounded by scenery that people travel across the country to see while simultaneously worrying about groceries, school schedules, appointments, sports practices, work and what in the world everyone is going to eat for dinner.

That contrast still gets me.

There are moments when I’m rushing somewhere, completely caught up in normal life, and then I actually look around.

And I remember where I live.

I hope I never completely stop noticing.

Colorado Weather Has Absolutely No Interest in Your Plans

Having lived in Kentucky, Louisiana, Florida and Texas, I thought I understood weather.

I knew heat.

I knew humidity.

I knew storms.

I knew the kind of summer where walking from the house to the car ruins your hair before you’ve even gone anywhere.

Then I moved to Colorado.

Colorado introduced me to an entirely different concept:

weather with commitment issues.

You can leave the house perfectly dressed for the weather and somehow be completely wrong a few hours later.

Sunshine does not necessarily mean warm.

Snow does not necessarily mean everything shuts down.

A beautiful blue sky can be lying to you.

And a good winter coat is only the beginning.

Layers stop being a fashion decision and become a legitimate life strategy.

Mountain weather adds another layer of unpredictability to all of it.

One minute you’re convinced spring has arrived.

The next minute Colorado reminds you that it never agreed to that.

Living in the Mountains Is Beautiful. It’s Also Still Real Life.

This is probably one of the biggest things I would tell someone dreaming about moving to the mountains.

Yes, it is beautiful.

Sometimes ridiculously beautiful.

But you don’t move into a postcard.

You still have to work.

You still have to buy groceries.

You still have appointments, laundry, bills, school schedules and errands.

You still forget something at the store and have to decide whether you really want it badly enough to go back out.

Except now some of those errands involve winding mountain roads, snow, wildlife or weather that seems to have changed its mind halfway through the day.

There are things about mountain living that are less convenient.

And there are moments when that inconvenience feels completely worth it.

I think both things can be true.

That’s actually one of the things I want this blog to be honest about.

I don’t want to write the kind of travel and lifestyle blog where every destination is “charming,” every hotel is “stunning,” every meal is “incredible,” and apparently no one has ever spent too much money, gotten lost, hated an activity or wondered why they planned something in the first place.

If I love something, I’ll tell you.

If I don’t understand why everyone else loves it, I’ll probably tell you that too.

Evergreen Isn’t Quite the Colorado People Imagine

When people who don’t live here picture Colorado mountain towns, their minds often go straight to ski resorts and vacation destinations.

Evergreen feels different to me.

It’s not a place that only exists for visitors.

People actually live their everyday lives here.

Kids go to school.

Parents rush to activities.

People commute.

Everyone runs errands.

There are community events, restaurants, shops and all the ordinary pieces of real life happening against this very unordinary backdrop.

And I think that’s part of what makes it interesting.

It doesn’t feel like it’s trying to create a mountain experience.

It simply is one.

Living Here Changed the Way I Think About Home

After living in so many different places, I’m not sure I believe home has to mean only one thing anymore.

Kentucky will always have my heart.

It’s the place that feels rooted in me.

But Colorado is where I’m living this chapter of my life.

Louisiana gave me memories.

Florida gave me an entirely different kind of life by the water.

Texas was another stop on the map.

And now I wake up in the mountains.

Every place leaves something behind.

A favorite food.

A smell.

A memory.

A way of talking.

A tradition you keep without even realizing where it came from.

Maybe home isn’t one dot on a map.

Maybe it’s layered.

Kentucky can be the place that has my heart.

Colorado can be the place where I’m building my life now.

And every place in between can belong to the story too.

Which is really where the name Magnolias, Mountains & Maps comes from.

The magnolias are my Southern roots.

The mountains are where I am now.

And the maps are for everywhere I’ve been, everywhere I’m going, and all the places I haven’t even thought of yet.

What You’ll Find Here

I want to write about what it’s genuinely like to live in Colorado, especially mountain life in and around Evergreen.

But I don’t want this to become a Colorado tourism brochure.

I want to talk about the things you actually want to know.

The mountain towns worth spending a weekend in.

The ones that might be overrated.

Where I would eat.

Where I would shop.

What I would wear.

What Colorado winter actually feels like when you have to live your regular life in it.

Where I would take my family.

What things cost.

Trips we loved.

Trips that went completely sideways.

Hotels that were worth the money.

Places I wouldn’t bother with again.

Things I miss about the South.

Places I want to go next.

And all the strange little things you usually don’t learn about somewhere until you’ve actually spent some time there.

Because after living in such different parts of the country, I’ve realized that one of the things I’m most interested in is the difference between visiting somewhere and knowing somewhere.

That’s what I want Magnolias, Mountains & Maps to be about.

Not just where to go.

But what it actually feels like when you get there.

And maybe, every once in a while, what it feels like when you decide to stay.