Colorado Road Trip Day 5: Colorado

Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Trip Odometer: 1340

With a short ride today, we had a somewhat more leisurely start from Rawlins. The first part of the trip continued along I-80 to Laramie, from which we took US-267 to Fort Collins, Colorado, bypassing Wyoming’s capital, Cheyenne. Celeste noticed that immediately upon entering Colorado, the surroundings were quite a bit more scenic: pine trees, interesting rock formations, and the like. We are wondering if the trees were planted as a “welcome to Colorado” gesture to travelers.

As we had planned, we had lunch in Fort Collins at Austin’s, a downtown restaurant we had enjoyed on a previous visit. The temperature was perfect for their sidewalk seating area.

For most of the trip, the highway speeds have been too fast (70-80 mph) for Celeste, still an inexperienced driver, to share in the driving. But as we left Fort Collins, she took over and very appropriately did the “anchor” segment of the trip to Boulder.

We arrived about 4 pm at the home of Susie and Ken, my cousin’s daughter, son-in-law, and family. My cousin Stan was there to greet us. Susie and Ken and their kids Zach and Molly arrived about 5 from school on their bicycles.

Celeste had made arrangements to meet some of her new roommates in town, so the rest of us had a fine time getting caught up on things over excellent tacos prepared by our hosts.

This article is part of a series about our recent road trip to Colorado and back. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.