Fort Collins and La Poudre Canyon, Colorado

I have a list of place that I want to go (everywhere), and places that I’ve been. Just this month so far, I’ve been able to add Iowa (technically I just drove through the corner so I’ll have to give that state a proper destination visit sometime, not just a drive-through visit), Nebraska, Wyoming, and Colorado.

My trip to Colorado only lasted a day, since I wasn’t prepared for an overnight stay, but it was a full, amazing day. I paid Fort Collins a visit. My first order of business was to stop in at the visitor’s center. If you ever go to Fort Collins, I highly recommend this unless you have someone with you to serve as a guide. They have detailed maps of downtown and the surrounding areas, as well as racks and racks full of brochures for the city, surrounding area, and entire state. Then they are further divided into the type of activity. This really appealed to my overly organizational self. There was an entire rack just for microbreweries. I skipped that rack, though I’ll have to do a microbrewery tour when I am staying the night or have a driver. Since I was planning on doing some driving and hiking and going back that night, I didn’t think it wise to go on a beer tour. I know I just talked a lot about a welcome center, but they helped me find some places I never would've found on my own and that weren't super crowded and touristy.

I’m glad I stopped because the worker was able to point me in the direction of La Poudre River, which runs through a canyon. But first, I found a parking garage ($1/hour) downtown and explored a bit. I spent WAY too much time in the rock shop. THEY HAD CLEARANCE!! I love rocks, and I love clearance. I was in cheap rock nerd heaven! Anyway, I decided on a small decorative pot and an owl. I hesitate to call the pot an “urn” because that’s depressing, and there is no possible way to fit the ashes of an entire person in it, which is what urns are for. So it’s a small, decorative pot made of a red onyx (it was on clearance for under $6). The owl was a type of green onyx as well. I also stopped at a touristy shop to add to my postcard collection and not buy an expensive shirt. Nothing else really impressed me so I asked around about food. I ended up choosing Spoons, which is a soup and salad shop that lets you taste before you buy, and it is super cheap. I got a large helping of focaccia bread, chicken pot pie soup, a large salad, and a drink for around $8. I was full for very little money, and the food was great. I then found a local chocolate shop called Nuance, a bean to bar in-house chocolate factory. The chocolate was almost as much as my entire lunch, but it was worth it. I tipped the man behind the counter well for telling me about how they make the chocolate and choose the products, and for helping me select a chocolate. He asked me questions and narrowed it down to two bars. I picked a fruity dark chocolate that was delicious. They also offer a “chocolate flight” that includes several different chocolates across the wide spectrum of flavors they have. It was a quick stop. Highly recommend it.

I was tired of walking and anxious to see some sights, so I hit the road with my maps from the Colorado Welcome Center heading toward La Poudre Canyon. I immediately lost cell service because of the sheer rock on each side. It was beautiful. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves, but I’ll just tell you that there were camp grounds at every corner as part of the Roosevelt National Forest, and there were white water rafting tours putting in the water at various points.

The one picture I feel the need to explain is the animal in the middle of the road (to the immediate right). It was a mountain goat, and I feel bad for scaring it off, but at least I got it out of the roadway. There were a herd of them hanging out on the cliff on the left side of the picture. When I spooked it, it just hopped up the nearly vertical cliff face to join his buddies like it was nothing. It was sure-footed when I would have expected it to fall on all the loose rock.

I drove through the canyon and topped out at just over 7,000 feet in elevation at a restaurant/convenience store/whatever you need it to be in the mountains. I would have continued on, but the trip so far had taken me a long time because I kept stopping to look at everything and I was going slow because of the hairpin turns. I would love to go back and go camping there so I could spend more time in Fort Collins. I’m adding it to the list of possible camp sites, because there was definitely no shortage of them in La Poudre Canyon.

Since I left Torrington a lot later than I intended, I had to head back after that, but, like I said, I need another full weekend trip to visit Fort Collins again and explore properly. I also got a very odd request from my dad to not visit Estes Park, that I was to save that for visiting with my mom. It was odd because she’s never been to Colorado that I know of, so I wondered where she’d heard of it. But I dutifully jotted it down and didn’t think twice. Until I asked a friend who’d lived in Fort Collins for a while what I should do....

“Go to Estes Park! The hotel where the Shining was filmed is there!” Turns out the Stand was filmed there, too.

My mom is a giant Steven King fan. I see where you’re going with this, mom...