DAY 2: WEDNESDAY
Today’s agenda included more drinking and welcoming of friends to Fort Collins, but the main activity of the day was a hike up Mount Margaret, about 45 minutes from the city. The trail, situated on pastureland, was an easy one but with some great scenery. We were joined by some friends of Ross and Kelley, who’d just come from a weekend camping trip in Estes Park (which we’ll be visiting later in this report). The pictures do more justice to the hike than I can with words, so I’ll leave you with a few choice images and point you to the gallery for Day 2 for more. Nevermind the breweries, this is heaven on earth.
Ross surveys his domain
Boo weighs whether or not to push Ross off cliff and take
ownership of aforementioned “domain”
The two were never seen again…
Our souls invigorated by the communal with nature, we headed back to Fort Collins to balance things out with some drinkin’ and grillin’. We also greeted our next arrival, Martha, fresh in from San Francisco. Exciting times.
After a lovely dinner, we got a bit rowdy. Much like the hike, pictures do it more justice than my words.
Rarely-seen ceremony to summon Justin Toy from his crawlspace
Kelley asking Ross to cease rarely-seen ceremony to summon
Justin Toy from his crawlspace
No explanation necessary, right?
I AM THE DOG WHISPERER
At some point we ran out of beer (as if we needed more, after what you’ve seen thus far), and hopped on some bikes to ride down to the grocery store. Bikes are a fact of life in Fort Collins. Every street’s got a bike lane, and much like Beijing, the government will sentence you to prison if you don’t ditch your pollutant-spewing car and ride your Schwin to work everyday. That stringent policy changes come winter, when the eight feet of snow forces everyone to rent snowmachines from Todd Palin. Anyway, we somehow made it to the store and back without any casualties, despite persistent yelling, picture-taking, and swerving all over the road along the way.
I’ll just note here for the record that Andy, Courtney and Sean joined us later that night, sometime after the bike patrol returned. We all sat around the fire for a bit, a fire prepared by Ross’ Uncle Kenny, seen below.
The rest of the late night was spent outside around the fire regaling each other with tales of our travels, periodically punctuated by a slumbering Kelley urging us from her bedroom above us to keep it down. Sorry, Kelley! Our only excuse for the rowdiness can be found below.
We were all pretty beat after a full day, so it was time to call it a night and hit the hay. Some were so spent they couldn’t even make it to their own beds. Namely, our host.
What do you suppose he’s dreaming about?
awesome recap as always…
Love it! I will never forget being kept up all night – I was just trying to get some beauty sleep before my wedding day. But know in the future I will be out there with you all!
Jenna’s love at New Belgium is “Bernie”. I think he still thinks about that wonderful day!