Colorado road trip part 2

Driving in America is a totally different experience to driving at home, especially when you’re at the controls of a super comfortable all mod cons SUV.
Alamo Rent a Car at Denver Airport, the local partners of Holiday Autos, kindly gave us an upgrade. In fact, they just showed us a line of 20 SUVs and told us to take our pick.
I’m already in love with our Dodge Durango, a beast of a motor with more storage than my house and gadgets I didn’t even know existed. When we reverse, a rear screen video switches on and we can see what’s behind us, the seats have all the ergonomics of a BA Club World flatbed and, best of all, when you scan the satellite radio stations (neatly categorised into rock, soft rock, hip hop, sports, etc), you can pick your favourites and save them to replay later. It is, as they say often on this side of the Atlantic, awesome!

So, thanks to the Durango, our 1 hr 10 min drive north to Fort Collins was a joy. Freddie didn’t whinge once. Mind you, I told him at the start of the journey that if he was good we would be going on a ‘big boat’, so he was on his best behaviour.
We were off on a two-hour boat ride had around the Horsetooth Reservoir in the foothills west of Fort Collins with Inlet Bay Marina
Our two-hour cruise on a 35ft Top Deck Boat took us around the 6.5 mile reservoir, admiring the beaches and rocky bays along the way. Jessie, our guide, told us the names of the bays and pointed out some of the fabulous lakeside homes. The sky was bright blue, the water was like a millpond, and we pretty much had all 6.5 miles to ourselves, save for a few passing speedboats. According to Jessie, in the summer it’s a different story, especially at Party Bay, a popular spot for boaters to anchor down and enjoy some beers and a swim.

Horsetooth Reservoir

At Fort Collins we stopped at Beau Joe’s, recommended by Jessie, and ordered its famous Mountain Pies. It’s essentially a very deep and loaded pizza and we made the mistake of ordering one each and could only manage half.
We stayed the night at the Armstrong Hotel, in the middle of the city’s Old Town. This private, family-run boutique hotel is the last operating historic hotel in downtown Fort Collins. Originally a hotel back in the 1920s, it then fell into disrepair until it was lovingly restored and re-opened as a hotel in 2004.

The Armstrong Hotel

On our Haunted Tour later that evening we found out that some ghostly goings on have been reported at our hotel, but thankfully not in our room (217 is the one to avoid apparently). Lori, our charismatic guide, also shared grisly stories of historic Fort Collins, complete with murders, hangings and lynch mobs. She took us down into former underground prisons and tunnels used for bootlegging and freaked us out by turning the lights off and using a dim torch and an EMF sensor to detect paranormal activity. It was all very entertaining. Afterwards we went back to the hotel and just had to walk past room 217 to see if we could hear any unexplainable rustlings.

Haunted tour

For more information, see Visit Colorado