Saturday, June 17:
We continued driving toward Ft. Collins and found Lee's Bike Shop to look at the bike. Luckily and ironically, they have a tech, Ian, who used to live in Anchorage and work at Speedway, where we bought the bike, and he is familiar with Fatbacks. Small world moment!! He is going to help us out!! While they were taking a look, Stephanie rented a cruiser bike and we all biked around town- through the CSU campus, past the old places we lived and all through downtown. Ft. Collins has the best streets for biking. Not only are they super wide, many have their own bike lanes. Check out the pix showing bikes even have their own stop lights. We went by the New Belgium brewery and had dinner at our old favorite- Big City Burrito! It tasted exactly the same and was delicious. We found a campsite north of town at the Wellington KOA.
Sunday, June 18:
After a slow morning and hot showers, we headed up the Poudre Canyon to hike Greyrock. A popular hike but one of our old favorites. It was great and we were hot and very tired. A deer walk right up the trail and past us which was crazy! And the wildflowers were beautiful! Sven decided to take the meadow route down and Svea and Stephanie raced him down the same way we went up. We all ran down the mountain and the ladies beat Sven down by 3 minutes (we hestiate to mention that he went a route that was 1.3 miles longer). Hungry from the hike, we were all excited to go back to Big City Burrito- again! Checked in with the bike shop- need to order a part....will need to come back to Ft. Collins for the bike. Bummer!!!
Ended the evening at Odells Brewery and bought Steph's favorite beer- 90 Shilling. We did some shopping before heading out of town picking up some odds and ends we had been needing.
We headed back up the Poudre Canyon and spent the night at the Dutch Gorge campground. We had a beautiful site right on the river, had a bench nearby and enjoyed a great sunset that evening.
Monday, June 19:
We aimed to backpack overnight up the Blue Lake trail but got turned around by park trail volunteers 2.5 miles in due to snow. What? Apparently there was a 40inch snow fall late May that required snow shoes to get where we wanted. We did not pack snow shoes (of course), so we hiked back to the car. Drove back S about 6 miles to Big South and camped up the trail at Campsite #2. Great sleep outside and used the tent for the first time on the trip. Fun outing!!
