Colorado - Day 28 - Loveland & Fort Collins

Boyd Lake State Park, Loveland                                                              Monday, 28 September 2020

I had several goals today: take Lily for the appointment I'd made to get her claws clipped, pick up my mail David & Anna forwarded to me at General Delivery in Loveland, pick up refills for my prescriptions I'd called in to a CVS, drop off recycling stuff, and see a little bit of Fort Collins, which is another name I've heard of for years.  I got it all done, but it took 6 hours and involved a whole lot more running around than I'd planned, so I was pretty tired by the end of the day.  I still think the tiredness has as much to do with the altitude as it does with me, but I'm still tired no matter the reason.

today's route

So the Loveland Post Office was very pleasant and efficient and had my mail ready.

The CVS was not at all efficient.  I'd called them last Friday, they said my 2 Rx's would be ready by Saturday, but when I went in today one of them wasn't and would I please come back in an hour.  I gave them 2 hours but when I went back, they said they were out of that 2nd one and I'd have to come back later in the week.  When I said I was leaving town and wouldn't be back any time soon, they found another CVS that had the right stuff and sent me there.  Of course I got lost trying to find it, but that place turned out to be pleasant and efficient and I wished I'd gone there in the first place.

The vet's office - Raintree Animal Hospital, which seems an inappropriate name for this climate - was pleasant and efficient, but I had to get there first.  I discovered too late that I could approach it from only one direction (of course not the one I was going in), so I had to find a place to turn around.  Once I did, I discovered their parking area was just barely big enough for 2 rows of 5 cars, and the only reason I didn't get stuck in there is that all the spaces hadn't been filled up so I could back up into a spot.  But Lily got her claws clipped and her flea medicine applied and they charged me the usual $15, which seems to be about what everyone charges.  Worth it to both me and Lily, because she's been getting her claws caught in the screens recently (much to her irritation and my dismay about my screens).

I found the Fort Collins recycling facility and got rid of all my stuff, glass and plastic bottles and all.  A relief to my limited bathroom storage space.

As I was driving to these various places, which took me all over town, I discovered a business with at least 2 outlets called Serious Texas Bar-B-Q.  I learned that pets in general, and dogs in particular, are big business in this area, because I saw umpteen businesses that cater to them one way or another.  The Dog Pawlor (grooming) and Dogtopia (boarding) are samples.

I learned this whole area is full of lakes and reminds me of Orlando for that reason (though much smaller - Orlando has 100,000 people more than Fort Collins's 167,000 in the town plus 2,500,000 in the metro area).  Also a real difference in elevation, since Fort Collins is at 4,984' and Orlando is at 102'.  But both are built around a lot of small lakes.  Although Fort Collins seems to be growing by leaps and bounds, with apartments and condos going up everywhere, its downtown area is quaint and old-fashioned and pleasant.

The Northern Hotel is an example.  It's now been converted into apartments, but the building went up in 1873.  It's one of those triangular buildings.

There's also a pedestrian mall downtown that's a block of a street that's been blocked off from traffic.  Very attractive.

Colorado State University is located here on a large attractive campus right in the middle of town.

I also found a place called Annual Flower Trial Garden, that covers about half a city block with a park and vast numbers of flowers.

These should give a sample of this garden.  I wanted to get out but couldn't easily find a parking place and certainly didn't want to take the dogs with me, but at least I got to see the general idea.

This description of Fort Collins probably sounds pretty positive but the incredible traffic overshadowed all of that.  I was there early on a Monday afternoon and there's no reason why the streets and parking areas should have been clogged with cars, but they were.  Traffic was horrendous and it left me with a slightly unpleasant view of the town.

Loveland is 10 miles down the road, so it's quite a separate town.  It has less than half the population of Fort Collins, and the numerous lakes are more in evidence.  Altogether, it seems a more pleasant town.  I went back to Loveland for a grocery store, not wanting to fight the mobs in Fort Collins.

Then back to the campground.  I don't know why this campground was so underpopulated in comparison with every other campground I stayed in this month.  Maybe it was because the weather was turning much colder, maybe because people were finally getting that gotta-get-outside out of their systems, maybe because this campground is a little out of the way.  All I can say for sure is that there are 148 campsites in this campground, and I'd be surprised if as many as 50 of them were used either night I stayed here.

It's right on a lake (note the name of the campground), and right in Loveland so I had an internet signal (a bonus), but what I liked best were the mountains.

I don't know if you can tell, but there were at least four layers of mountains in these views.  At sunset, it was a stunning view.