Colorado Adventure

Summer Adventure Part 1- Northern Colorado

As inquiring minds want to know here is the skinny on my summer adventure. We were visiting some friends who recently relocated to Fort Collins in northern Colorado and had a blast enjoying not only their fabulous hospitality, but a wonderful outdoor adventure.

The first day was spent wandering Old Town Fort Collins with its delightful shops and great public sculptures. Of course most of those photos are on a different camera thus they are not included in this essay. Had some great buffalo burgers and beer! If you haven't tried buffalo yet I highly recommend it. It tastes more like beef than beef and is a lot healthier for you.

Second day was trail rides in the mountains with my friend and daughter. We set off to Tip Top Ranch and their 6400 acres ranch, 1000 acres which were devoted to the trail rides and the other 5400 made up the working cattle ranch. The high meadows were beautiful with columbines, penstemon, wild roses and loco weed in bloom. Allergy hell for those who suffer as the cottonwoods were setting forth their delicate puff balls into the sky to drift rather romantically along with the breeze. I was on Dakota- a 16 ½ hand tall gelding who had been nicknamed McSnacky by the ranch workers. He was a rather clever one as he had perfected the fine art of grazing as he walked by just dipping his head slightly on the inclines. Two hours of fun with some beautiful vistas.

After an evening of fun with a cocktail party and getting to meet all their new co-workers and neighbors we spent the next day strolling around Rocky Mountain National Park.

Yes, there is still snow up there and this is when I learned that the Rocky Mountains are … well, rocky. Seems obvious, but true with tons of metamorphic rocks and gorgeous lichens. A little picnicking on some homemade bread, wine, and cheese then strolling around Sprague Lake. As you can probably tell by now, we're not the die hard outdoorsmen. Nonetheless, it was a perfect day with blue sky and a few picturesque clouds tumbling by.

Now since we haven't had enough fun yet, day 4 was allocated to whitewater river rafting. Of course we had a great breakfast at the Waffle House first, I myself enjoyed: 2 eggs, hash browns, waffle, 2 pieces of toast, and 4 cups of coffee. I generally don't eat that much food, but I figured a carb-loading for the upcoming event was probably a good thing. (Yes, I regularly drink that much coffee.) I'll skip over the indelicate details of what the facilities of a place under construction is like, port-a-potties and grassy tents for changing; as well as the moldy smelling wetsuits to focus on the main event- rafting!

The water was very high and a brisk 40 degrees, hence the wetsuits. Great fun with everything from Class I to Class IV rapids, the latter lasting approximately ½ mile. Our boat was fabulous- of course and we lost no one overboard. Several people went for a dip, I think three boats lost at least one passenger that run. We had a blast, but all good things must come to an end and now we're recovering back home.