Well we thought we had seen most everything but on the way to Estes Park we stopped at the Wyoming rest stop just before entering Colorado. While there, we saw a trucker pull in and set up a long ramp from his passenger door. Next he guided his two pet hogs down the ramp and out to the grass where most people take their dogs. It was quite a sight and it might be a while before we can say – well now we’ve seen everything again!
We spent a month in this area in October 2023. The actual park we stayed at is about half way between Colorado Springs and Penrose / Cañon City. Also nearby is Florence which is the home to numerous prisons including the ADX supermax prison sometimes known as the Alcatraz of the Rockies. It is one of the most secure prisons in the U.S. and has housed several high profile criminals including Ted Kaczynski (the Unibomber), Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (Boston Marathon Bomber), and Richard Reid (the Shoe Bomber). We drove by but didn’t linger in the area!
Also nearby is the Royal Gorge near Cañon City, several roads with beautiful scenery up into the nearby Rocky Mountains (although we played it safe and didn’t try some of the more challenging ones with our dually truck), and of course Florissant, Divide, Woodland Park and Colorado Springs. We took a few road trips and hikes but mostly just hung out at our park. Just before the end of our stay, the area got it’s first winter snow and we woke up one morning to 8″ of snow. Luckily most of it was gone before we left.
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Fort Collins was founded as a military outpost of the United States Army in 1864. Settlers began arriving in the vicinity of the fort almost immediately. The fort was decommissioned in 1867 but the area continued to grow and thrive. Today the city is the fourth most populous city in Colorado with a population of 169,810 at the 2020 census.
Situated on the Cache La Poudre River along the Colorado Front Range, Fort Collins is located 56 miles north of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver. Fort Collins is a midsize college town, home to Colorado State University and Front Range Community College’s Larimer campus. Much of Fort Collins’s culture is centered around the students of Colorado State University. There is a local music circuit which is influenced by the college town atmosphere and Fort Collins is home to a number of well known microbreweries. The Downtown Business Association hosts a number of small and large festivals each year in the historic Downtown district. The Fort Collins Lincoln Center is home to the Fort Collins Symphony Orchestra and regularly attracts national touring companies of Broadway plays.
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We stayed in Fountain for a week in late May of 2022 to visit our son, Matthew and grandson Anders. Unfortunately our first choice of parks, Cheyenne Mountain State Park did not have any empty sites large enough for us so we picked the KOA in southern Colorado Springs. Fortunately, the Colorado Springs KOA is a good choice for a visit particularly if you have children or grandchildren. Even though their main splash pad pool was still closed due to issues from the off season, there was still plenty to do.
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We stayed here in mid-October for a week to visit our son Matthew and grandson Anders. Because the primary reason for this stop was to see family, we didn’t do a lot of exploring in the area. As might have been expected we had a few warm days followed by some heavy snow that didn’t stick and then some cooler days and nights. We plan to return when we can enjoy being outside more to enjoy the views.
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