Blogs from Fort Collins, Colorado, United States, North America - page 3

when i was 20, i took my first overseas trip ever. to Vietnam. trial by fire. i had just finished a hellish semester with 4 brutal finals, working at the university loading dock, and was now in the market for a backpack and traveling clothes. i gave myself all of a night to pack. as in, an overnight, when i should have been sleeping. perhaps you can relate to this, fellow travelers and students of life. i'm making a very conscious decision here not to tell you what i packed on that maiden voyage. it's embarrassing, and involved lots of cotton and pretty much every bad packing decision ever made. 4 weeks later, my pack was emptied and searched at LAX, my scruffy smelly bewildered self standing by helplessly as new immigrants, hippie couples with newly ... read more

Boarding my first Greyhound bus at 1 pm was an eye opening experience for me. I should have, but didn't, expect that it would be full of all kinds of weirdos and well... losers. I hate to be so judgmental, but it really was a thorough collection of the US's trashiest kinds of people. During my bus ride I observed a lot of oddities and just plain gross behavior, and I started to compile some rough estimates of the people of the bus as a whole. The more I observed and heard, the more I realized that riding a Greyhound bus is a comedic gold mine for stand up comedians. There's just a ton of funny things about the typical Greyhound ride! For instance: There will be anywhere from 1 to 3 normal people on the ... read more

May 18th. We break camp along the Yampa River early in the morning. Today we plan to travel toward the grasslands of northeastern Colorado before heading to Denver, where Leigh's cousin Ruth lives. We travel east, passing through Steamboat Springs, a ski resort area, where once again we encounter snow. We soon see high plain vistas and cattle ranches. We stop for the night in Fort Collins. With no camping spots available, we stay at a modest motel. The next morning we continue on through what is called short-grass prairie. Fairly bleak countryside with towns few and far between, dotted with the occasional forlorn windmill.... read more

Although the sky was very overcast and threatening, the temps were mild and the roads dry as we started out on Snow Ridge Road, our last scenic route through southern Wyoming. Wyoming is a beautiful state with so much wide open land, fresh air, wildlife, desert, high plains, prairie and mountains. We've had good weather until the last couple of days so really can't complain. Frank's friend Chuck was quite funny when he asked what were the three most important things we had learned about Wyoming. The correct answer according to Chuck is take every opportunity to stop for gas, take advantage of every bathroom you see and the third is that wind makes all the difference. He was absolutely right. Gasoline and bathrooms are few and far between out in the desert and mountainous areas ... read more

Weekend at the cabin... read more