Well since Fort Collins was so neat, we decided to take an extra day here. We had an awesome nights sleep and woke up ready to explore Fort Collins. After having some cereal for breakfast, Jesse took us on a hike up Horsetooth Mtn. trail. The area was so beautiful and we had a great time hiking up to the top of the mountain. It was 2 and a half miles up and 2 and a half miles back. When we reached the top, we were at an elevation of 7, 256 ft. which is the highest point we've been on so far on the trip, and the highest point I have ever been at, but I'm sure that number will be changing shortly. While standing at the top of the Horsetooth Mtn if you looked to the east you could see for what seemed like hundreds of miles across the prairie. To the west you could see the snowy topped mountains, one of which was 1400ft high, twice the height of where we standing. There were a lot of people hiking on the trail today, and many of them brought their dogs with them too. After our hike, we stopped at REI and bought some new shoes for Joey because his water shoes were falling apart so bad. We also saw a crack in my rear rack and were worried it might break like Joe's did on day 1 so we bought a sturdier rack for my bike too. Since we noticed that my back tire was flat again this morning, we decided that it would be easier if we rode a couple of Jesse's bikes around town so we didn't have to fix the flat/unload all of the bags. There is a brewery in town called The New Belgium Brewery that Jesse really wanted to make sure we saw before we left, so that was our first stop. It was kind of a busy day, so we got our names on the list for a tour and then went out to lunch in town. Jesse took us to the first place he was taken to eat when he was on his tour. The food was delicioius! Joe had pulled pork and I had southern fried chicken (and this was no kfc, it was so moist and delicious I can't even explain). After our tasty meal we rode back over to the brewery in perfect time to go on the tour. This brewery was something else. It was founded by a guy who rode his bike around Belgium to learn about how they make their beer over there. He brought back his knowledge and began the brewery. Everything in the brewery is bike related; the employees get a different custom made cruiser bike for each year of employment, all of the decorations are made of bicycle parts, and their beer is even bicycle related with names like Spokes and fat tire just as examples. We had so much fun on the tour. Fort Collins is definitely a place any bicycle enthusiast should visit! This town is so bicycle friendly. At one point there were more bicycles at a stop light than cars, which was hard to believe for me. After we rode back to Jesse's we got ready to go to the drive-in, which I was particularly excited about since I had never been to one before. Jesse and Lauren went to the store to pick up some snacks for the movie and then we headed over. There was an incredible amount of cars in line, apparently everyone was pretty excited it was warm enough for the drive in. When we finally got in and found a spot, we snacked on some cheese and crackers, cashews and gummy bears. The movie that we saw was The Hunger Games and it was pretty good. Since it was already pretty late and we were all pretty whooped, we opted to head home instead of watching the second movie. What an incredible day it was! It was so nice having our own tour guide to show us some of the exciting things to see in Fort Collins. We rode about 10 miles around town throughout the day. It is so easy getting around town on a bike, I don't know why you would even take a car.
|
|