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Sunday, May 4, 2025

Fort Collins, Colorado


Fort Collins, Colorado, is the fourth most populous city in Colorado and the 156th most populous city in the United States. Fort Collins was founded by the US Army as a military outpost in 1864. Situated north of Denver and tucked between the prairie and the mountains, Fort Collins is the last city on Interstate 25 north before you hit the Wyoming border. It's also a gateway city to northern Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park and Roosevelt National Forest.

It is a prominent college town, home to Colorado State University, a public research university, and the second-largest university by enrollment in Colorado.  As a college town, it has plenty to offer visitors, including a fun art, music, and theater scene, a range of locally sourced eateries, miles of trails, acres of open spaces, and a well-deserved reputation as the Craft Beer Capital of Colorado!


We visited Fort Collins ten years ago for the day to take a tour of the New Belgium Brewery--see that post on this link. On this visit, we had plans to stay in the town for a few days to use it as a base for some local scenic road trips. We passed many modern suburban homes in the area and charming older homes in the city center.


We stopped at a Fort Collins Visitor Center near Old Town to pick up some tourist brochures and information. It was decorated with the green Colorado University Rams insignia portrayed on the college's men's and women's sports teams. A helpful guide told us a few places not to miss on our visit--the Old Town Square and the Annual Flower Trial Garden.


He pointed out a poster on the wall of an overhead drone photo of the Trial Garden and told me that it was early for some plantings, but the tulips should be in bloom.


They were!

Please click on the photo to enlarge it to read the placard information


The Colorado State University Trial Gardens states:

"The purpose of the trial program conducted at the Annual Flower Trial Garden is to evaluate the performance of different annual plant cultivars under our unique Rocky Mountain environmental conditions. Our growing conditions are characterized by high altitude, intense solar radiation, drying winds, severe hailstorms, large fluctuations between day and night temperatures and a season-long need for irrigation. Each year, our annual trial consists of over 1,000 different cultivars of annual bedding plants. Varieties are grouped by genus, arranged by color and grown in rows, side-by-side, so as to facilitate the comparison of similar varieties. In addition to the Annual Trial, we also have a Pansy/Cool-season Crop Overwintering Trial that tests a plant’s ability to overwinter in the Northern Colorado climate, as well as a new two-year Perennial Trial program designed to test newer perennial cultivars that have been introduced in the past three years or less."



As our visit took place in April, tulips, daffodils, and other spring bulbs and plants were the only flowers growing so beautifully! There were also hundreds of flower pots waiting to be planted. The grounds look exceptionally beautiful in summer when everything is blooming.


I enjoyed taking some close-up photos of the flowers.



Almost directly across the street from the Trial Garden I saw a giant Campbell's Soup can! I later found it was one of three soup cans that were placed on display when Pop-art icon Andy Warhol visited Fort Collins in 1981. Collectors John and Kimiko Powers sponsored an exhibition of his work at Colorado State University. It was a memorable visit for many!



Our Next stop was the Old Town Square

The well-preserved downtown includes over 20 restored historical buildings, which are part of national and local designated historic districts. Inspiration for Disneyland’s Main Street USA was based on Old Town Fort Collins' turn-of-the-20th-century charm, character, and architecture.


Downtown Fort Collins is filled with unique, locally-owned stores, boutiques, and specialty shops with elaborate window displays beckoning you inside. There are also a variety of restaurants, bars, bistros, lounges, and pubs.



One alleyway led to a historic firehouse that is now an independent bookstore!


I enjoyed window shopping at the stores and admiring the public artworks




We also enjoyed listening to a visitor playing a street piano on the square.

 Dinner time approached, and we wanted to return to a nearby town of Severance--click here--to read that post, to dine, as we heard they had the best Rocky Mountain Oysters. 
If you don't know what Rocky Mountain Oysters are, click on this hyperlink to find out--they taste better than you would imagine!


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Sunday, May 11, 2025

Odell Brewery Company of Fort Collins, Colorado

Last week's blog post showed some of the sights of Fort Collins, Colorado--click here to read that post. Fort Collins is actually the craft beer capital of Colorado with over 20 craft breweries in town. There are plenty of places to sample local beer and also take a brewery tour. 

On a prior visit to Fort Collins ten years ago, we visited the New Belgium Brewery--click here-- to read that blog post. On this visit, we were excited to visit the Odell Brewery Company and take their tour.



Odell Brewing was founded by Doug Odell, his wife Wynne, and his sister Corkie. Over thirty years later, the culture of family and collaboration still thrives. Our very informative tour guide, Sam, showed us the process of Odell brewing from start to finish...


...and we were treated to many delicious tastes of their different beer brews during the tour.


One seasonal beer I learned about was their Peach Stand Rambler, which sounded like the perfect brew to enjoy on a warm summer day!


Odell is an independent, employee-owned brewery, committed to building community through beer.
The brewery’s tap room is open seven days a week and offers limited release pilot brews, food trucks, special events, and live music on Wednesdays.

As a new venture, the Odells added the OBC Wine Project--a wine brewery next door to the beer brewery-- in 2020. They source grapes from Washington, Oregon & Colorado, and they crush, ferment, and package the wines in Fort Collins.  

It is the best of both worlds!

In my next post, I'll take you along as we drive from Fort Collins to visit Rocky Mountain National Park along the Big Thompson River--a beautiful drive!



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Sunday, April 19, 2015

New Belgium Brewing, Fort Collins, CO



The ride north from the Denver area to the city of Fort Collins, Colorado, where the New Belgium Brewery is located, is only a little over an hour away and passes some beautiful scenery.  My husband and I wanted to take the free brewery tour of New Belgium Brewery, Colorado's biggest craft brewery since we moved here. Colorado is known for its variety of beer producers and is home to five of the top 50 craft breweries in the United States.

(All photos, and photo collages, in this post, will enlarge for easier viewing if clicked on)


New Belgium Brewery opened in 1991 after its founder, Jeff Lebesch, decided to take his homebrewing passion commercially.  If you enlarge the photo collage above by clicking on it, you can see the brewery's logo is a bicycle, and a bicycle is permanently parked outside.  The brewery's legend is that one of the co-founders was influenced by a bicycle trip he made through Belgium and Europe, tasting craft beers along the way.  When he returned home he developed and brewed his own amber ale, and named it "Fat Tire" in honor of that trip. Fat Tire Beer is now their flagship brand and the most popular beer


Bicycles are used as decorations throughout the brewery!


Most of the brewery employees bike to work in the brewery, which is located close to the bike path along the Cache La Poudre River. All employees have a stake in the ownership of the brewery, which they earn after one year's employment, along with a limited-edition Fat Tire Cruiser bicycle. After five years of employment, the company sends the employee on a trip for one week to Belgium!


The New Belgium Brewery utilizes sustainability and recycling in its operations. You can watch a new program video about many of these methods at this Youtube link.  They use solar and wind power to provide electricity in their plant, plus methane gas created as a byproduct of their on-site water treatment plant.


The brewery also uses an energy-efficient kettle for the brewing process, that heats twice as quickly, and provides significant savings in natural gas consumption,


I enjoyed photographing the colorful mosaics floor around the demonstration kettle on the tour.



The brewery has been named one of the "Best Places to Work" by many publications and organizations, as it promotes employee satisfaction and wellness. How could they lose with profit sharing, free bicycles, trips to Belgium, paid sabbaticals, and fun slides provided for the employees to use to travel from one floor to the next?  My husband had to try one out!


At the end of the free tour of the brewery, we were treated to samples of the different New Belgium Brewery beers in their tasting room. In addition to Fat Tire, they make Ranger IPA, Sunshine Wheat, Blue Paddle, Shift, and a litany of other beers--seasonal and artisanal blends. My husband and I really enjoyed the tour and would not hesitate to go again on another visit to Fort Collins.


New Belgium Brewery is located at 500 Linden St, in Fort Collins, Colorado, Tuesday - Sunday, 11AM to 6PM. Their free tours are very popular, so it is best if you book ahead of time


New Belgium Brewery is expanding and is opening a new brewery on the east coast, in Ashville, North Carolina sometime in 2015, so that they may have a market beyond their present 38 out of 50 states.

Have you tried any of the New Belgium Brewery beers? Do you have a favorite?

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Monday, April 28, 2025

Severance, Colorado and famous Rocky Mountain Oysters!


 My husband and I drove to Northern Colorado this week to spend a few days sightseeing in and around Fort Collins, and as we checked online for things to do and see, the nearby town's name of Severance caught my eye!  I am a big fan of the Apple TV+  series, Severance, as the coincidence of the names being the same made me want to drive through the town. Seeing the welcome sign made me even more curious.


The community was named after David Severance, a pioneer settler in the area. The town originally applied for its post office to be named Tailholt, but the name was mistakenly changed to Severance when Mr. Severance applied for the post office in 1894.

The town of Severance was once a small farming community, with sugar beets as a major crop,  but it was very evident by all the new housing developments we saw in the area that its population was booming!

Upon further investigation, we learned a local landmark, Bruce's Bar, was famous for their Rocky Mountain Oysters. They have been a house favorite since 1957!

 

 Murals on Bruce's Bar outside walls

Geese hunting is a popular sport during hunting season, so the town's motto of "Where the geese fly and the bulls cry" makes perfect sense!



Severance is only 10 miles east of Fort Collins, so after we checked into our hotel, we decided to drive back and dine at Bruce's Bar. 

We saw many beautiful and dramatic cloud formations along the drive.


We were so happy we returned to Severance to dine on Bruce's famous Rocky Mountain Oysters as appetizers--they were the best we ever had! We also enjoyed a draft beer and a delicious steak and shrimp dinner. It was a wonderful way to begin our mini-vacation!



We also enjoyed our visit to Fort Collins, Colorado... more in my next blog post!  

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Sunday, June 1, 2025

The Cache la Poudre and North Park Scenic Byway in Colorado, Part One


 Colorado has designated 26 areas as official scenic byways, with just over a dozen federally classified as American Byways. My husband and I have traveled many of them since moving to Colorado twelve years ago. While on a visit to Fort Collins- click here--to read that blog post, we learned there was a scenic drive nearby we could take as a detour side trip on our way back home.

The 101-mile corridor of Highway 14 between the city of Fort Collins and Walden, Colorado, constitutes the Cache la Poudre-North Park Scenic Byway. For much of the journey, the road parallels the Cache la Poudre River, Colorado’s only federally-designated National Wild and Scenic River. The river’s name translates from French to “hide the powder.” Legend tells that the river (pronounced "poo-der") was where French fur trappers decided to bury their gunpowder for retrieval in spring to lighten their load while traveling during a snowstorm in the mid-1800s. The name Caché la Poudre in French means ‘where the powder was hidden,’ and thus the river was named.



Along the drive, the rocky canyon twists and turns, crossing the river in a few places. The lower altitudes feature places where locals gather to engage in inner-tube rides and swimmers paddle in the slower-moving shallows. Rougher water can be found upriver, where rafters and kayakers challenge upwards of Class III rapids from May until late September.


As we drove through steep canyons, we saw hikers, fishermen, and campers along the way.


We enjoyed the wild, rustic scenery we saw along this part of the river!

A short video above of rapids on the Cache la Poudre River.

It was easy to see how the Rocky Mountains got their name!


As we gained elevation, we saw beautiful forest areas...


...but we also saw some areas that had been sadly devastated by past wildfires.


We stopped at the summit of Cameron Pass  (elevation 10,276 ft; 3,132 m). The pass is a gap between the south end of the Medicine Bow Mountains and the north end of the Never Summer Mountains. 


After descending from Cameron Pass, we entered a high plain area called North Park.


North Park is a high, sparsely populated basin (approximately 8,800 feet (2,700 m) in elevation). The valley receives its name from being the northernmost of the three large mountain valleys (or parks) in Colorado on the western side of the Front Range. The others are Middle Park and South Park respectively.  The basin opens northward into Wyoming, in the direction of flow of the North Platte. On the east side, it is rimmed by the Medicine Bow Mountains, the Never Summer Mountains, and Rabbit Ears Range to the south, and the Park Range to the west. The Continental Divide rims the Park along the south and west.

I find these high-elevation "parks" so mesmerizing! We live closest to South Park, and I've often blogged about it.

I have more to show about North Park and a wonderful wildlife refuge in Part Two of my next blog post--see you then!





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Sunday, June 8, 2025

North Park Colorado and the Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge



Last week, I blogged about our drive west from the Fort Collins, Colorado area along the Cache la Poudre River Scenic Byway into North Park--click here to read that post.
North Park is a high, sparsely populated basin (approximately 8,800 feet (2,700 m) in elevation) in the Rocky Mountains in north central Colorado. 
It is an expansive valley that stretches from north-central Colorado into Wyoming. Weighing in at more than a million acres that are 65% public land, North Park’s lakes, rivers, and wetlands draw all manner of wildlife, and the area features some of the most remote and sparsely populated wilderness terrains in the state.



North Park is comprised of a vast basin that’s fed by the North Platte, Michigan, Illinois, and Canadian Rivers, and is flanked by the Park Range to the west, the Medicine Bow Mountains, and the Never Summer Mountains to the east.




With over 71,000 acres to explore, State Forest State Park offers a diverse landscape of forest, majestic peaks, and alpine lakes, all brimming with wildlife. Stretching from the western slope of the Medicine Bow Mountains to the northern end of the Never Summer Mountain Range, the park offers year-round activities such as snowmobiling, geocaching, birding, hunting, horseback riding, and many more in one of the most stunning natural settings in the state.


“Moose is our claim to fame,” reads a line from State Forest State Park’s website. North Park is hailed as the Moose Viewing Capital of Colorado. The site goes on to say that an average of 600 moose are observed in North Park annually. 
We did not see any moose during our drive, but we were still excited about the female moose and her yearling calf we viewed in Rocky Mountain National Park the day before--click here-- to read that post.


As we drove along ....


...we soon passed by the small town of Walden.


There were also many cattle ranches in this area.



South of Walden, we stopped at an overlook for the Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge sits at elevations as high as 8,700 feet, making it the highest animal refuge in the National Wildlife Refuge System in the continental US. The refuge’s habitats, which include irrigated meadows, riparian, sagebrush uplands, wetlands, and mixed conifer and aspen forests, host an abundance of diverse wildlife species.


The overlook view was magnificent!


The winding blue Illinois River fills the Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge, traveling through sagebrush and native grasses.


Please click on the photo to enlarge it to read the information on the placard.

The refuge was established in 1967 to furnish waterfowl with a suitable place to nest and rear their young. It was created in part to offset losses of nesting habitat in the prairie wetland region of the Midwest.



Please click on the photo above to read this refuge exhibit, one of many placards on site, to read how the North Park basin was formed 45 million years ago! 



The top wall of the overlook also had many informational plaques to read.



Please click to enlarge the photo.

The refuge is also home to elk, beaver, pronghorn, and porcupine.
To protect the fragile wildlife habitats it hosts, the refuge consistently closes much of the area to visitors, but a 6-mile self-guided auto route is open for year-round visitor activities and stunning scenic overlooks. We wished we had time to explore more, but vowed to return one day to see more of the refuge and North Park.


We loved seeing North Park and its natural ruggedness.

As we drove home, we passed the town of Granby and saw the headwaters of the Colorado River, and also sadly, the remains of the 2020 East Troublesome Wildfire, the second-largest wildfire in the history of Colorado.


Next, we passed through the ski town of Winter Park, where the slopes were still full of snow during our trip at the end of April.


We could have driven an hour home directly from Fort Collins, but taking the Cache La Poudre to North Park Scenic Byway-- Highway 14--was well worth the extra three-hour drive, as we passed through so many wonderful sights. 
I hope you enjoyed seeing them in my blog posts over the past few weeks!

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