A Streetcar Named "21"?

Okay, so maybe Tennessee Williams overlooked this little gem, but Charlotte and I were still delighted to learn that there is a beautifully restored streetcar tooling around part of Fort Collins.

Everything about the streetcar is awesome, including the fact that the street it runs on is the same street "our" house in Fort Collins is on (see nifty spy photo below taken from inside the streetcar)!  

As you can see, Mountain Ave. outside our house has a pretty unusual traffic configuration (from left to right: streetcar lane, car lane, bike lane, parked car lane).  There's a lot going on on this quaint little street!

Thanks to the Fort Collins Streetcar folks for making us feel, well, special!  Come visit us during the summer months and we'll take you for a ride, too!

A parade!

Laramie holds an annual summer festival called "Laramie Jubilee Days."  Apparently, a huge parade is an essential part of a jubilee, and I was very surprised by the size and variety of this parade, considering what a small little city Laramie is!

What Laramie's parade may lack in sophistication (this wasn't exactly the Rose Bowl Parade) is offset by an abundance of: awesome old tractors...

...horses in various configurations...

...and vehicles that serve as reminders that this is rugged country.

I also had the opportunity to observe some truly rare sights, including a non-marching marching band...

...THE one and only "Tot Miss" of Albany County, Wyoming (very few can list this on a resume!)

....and, perhaps rarest of all, liberals...in Wyoming?!?  You really can see just about anything at a parade!

An alpine day

"The best part of living in Laramie is that the Snowies are 45 minutes away."  Charlotte and I have been hearing this repeatedly since moving here.  As we already discovered, some of Laramie's best selling points lie beyond the city limits (though not far).  As mentioned before, Vedauwoo is 20 minutes to our east (see below), and the closest bit of the Medicine Bow National Forest is only about 10 minutes away.

However, what I had been seeing all the time from Laramie...but hadn't experienced in person until today...is the Snowy Range, which lies about 30 miles west of town.

Wow.

At 7,200', Laramie is different from most places, but when you're in the Snowies you're up at about 10,500'.  It is an alpine landscape that feels like an entirely different world.  You're liable to see all sorts of things, like beautiful wildflowers...

...beautiful alpine meadows...

....adorable wildlife...

...and, if you're lucky, folks that take their macaws hiking.  

Knowing that this is all about 40 minutes away from our front door, would I go back again?  Yeah, maybe.  

Slow news day

This is not a thrilling blog post.  I just wanted to share that it is late June, and our Christmas cactus has never looked finer!    

Have a great weekend!

Still hot, still windy, and still dry!

Well, two weeks have passed since our last blog post, and while some things have changed, many have not.  It's hot here again (~90 in Laramie, and much more in Fort Collins), and we still have a bit of a forest fire going on out here!

Fortunately for us, the 2,000 or so firefighters that you've heard about on the news are braving terrible heat to keep things as safe as possible, and so summertime in Fort Collins has continued!  As a result, Charlotte & I were able to check out the Farmer's Market-and get some awesome strawberries.  Fun fact: very few things make Charlotte happier than strawberries!

Also, by an amazing coincidence, we left the Farmer's Market and walked a couple blocks over, arriving at the exact time and place that the Colorado Brewer's Festival got underway!  How on Earth did that happen?!?  Well, at any rate, it was wonderful, because Fort Collins is a bit of a beer Mecca-it has 9 or so of its own breweries.  These, plus the 30 or so other Colorado breweries that came, seemed to counteract the smoke...and the 105 degree heat...and everyone seemed to have a pretty nice time!

One of the more unique Fort Collins breweries is Equinox.  As you can see, they really embrace the pro-bike culture.  In fact, they only deliver their beer to places they can bike to with this contraption!

Fortunately, we were within biking distance on Saturday!

All in all, we had a wonderful time this weekend, but the grey cloud constantly hanging in the background reminded us to be thankful that we're safe & sound!  We're glad you are, too, and wish you a great week!

Hot, windy, and dry

Yesterday I took a brief trip to the wonderful Fort Collins, CO, where I'll be starting my PhD come August.

Coming down several thousand feet in elevation, I arrived to find it 95+, extremely windy (30+ mph winds), and exceptionally dry.

As a result, what is now one of the largest forest fires in the country was erupting just outside Fort Collins.  It made for a very surreal visit; I was attending an astronomy session several miles upwind of the fire, and so in addition to seeing amazing views of stars, I was able to watch air tankers circling overhead.

Here's a photograph I took from the CSU campus yesterday afternoon, less than 12 hours after the fire started.  It covered about 5,000 acres then, and from what I read, it covers more than 14,000 now.

Driving back to Laramie last night in the glow of massive flames made for a very eerie experience, but since I was dodging lots of "rubberneckers" and lacking a camera, you'll have to take my word for it (or  check out this photo I found online for some idea).

Laradise #6: LaBonte Park

Laramie has several nice city parks, including LaBonte Park.  It is not particularly noteworthy overall: it has a stinky lake (creatively nicknamed "Stink Lake" by the locals), a few trees, and a somewhat odd jungle gym-type exercise circuit for adults that seems a questionable use of taxpayer monies.  

However, it does have a very nice community garden, and we were lucky enough to get a plot this season!  

We've learned that Laramie only has a 56-day growing season, so things are off to a slow start, but we're still very excited to learn about high-altitude, short season gardening!  

While we wait for things to warm a bit, we've broken up the soil and applied some fertilizer courtesy of the garden coordinator, who happens to have a llama farm (the polite term for it is "llama beans").  Fun!

More updates to follow, and until then, we hope you've managed to beat the heat wherever this may find you!