Off to Wyoming

Sunday, July 15, 2012--Pueblo to Ft. Collins to Cheyenne to Laramie

After a great breakfast with David and Jim, I left their house at 9:00.  The first stop was Ft. Collins, another Colorado city with a very active downtown area.  I arrived at noon, and downtown was full of local people shopping, eating at sidewalk cafes, resting on benches, etc.  It's an attractive downtown and quite large.  While there, I went to the Ft. Collins Museum of Art which was free for me because of a reciprocity agreement.  There was an interesting exhibit of metal sculptures by a Chinese artist named Liao Yibai.

While in town, I also visited the Colorado State University campus.  It's a nice campus.  Some of the older buildings are rather plain and even cheap looking, but all the newer buildings look quite classy in design which uses lots of native stone and glass.

From there, I headed to Cheyenne.  I am a week early; their Frontier Days celebration begins next week.  But that just means that I was able to to what I wanted to do without it being too crowded.  I walked around the State Capitol and the nearby State Museum, both of which were closed because of it being a Sunday.  Then I walked down Capitol Street to the old train depot looking at all the old buildings along the way.  Downtown Cheyenne is mostly dead, at least on Sundays.  On my way back to my car near the capitol, I took a different route to see more of the older buildings in town.

I drove out to the park where they have the Frontier Days celebrations.  They were setting up the carnival.  The rodeo arena is so large it looks like it is a major football stadium.  I walked through the Botanical Gardens across the street where the seating was set up for a wedding to take place.  As I walked to a lake in the gardens, there sat the bride, rather pretty in her wedding dress except for one of her exposed arms being heavily tattooed.

From there, I drove to Sam's Club to eat a piece of pizza for dinner and to use their wifi to make a hotel reservation in Laramie.  I had tried to make one last night on David's computer, but he has only a satellite connection to the internet.  It was so slow that the attempt would time out before I could get a reservation made.  But that worked to my advantage.  I was able to get a room at the Ramada for $15 less than it was priced last night!

I took the scenic back road to Laramie--Route 210.  It went through the Medicine Bow National Forest which covered some rugged hills.  It would have been a good place for tent camping, but it was because of rain clouds I could see in the west that I made the hotel reservation.  By the time I arrived in Laramie, it was raining.  Because of that, I have spent the night in my room catching up on e-mail, reading the news online, etc.

Steps Walked:  11,327
Miles Driven:  357 (Over the two days in Pueblo and from Pueblo to Laramie)