Happy 4th!

A little bit late, but here's our report from the last week:


I got the day off on Wednesday for the 4th in the middle of a quiet week at work as many people were out on vacations. Fort Collins had some downtown live music and some art stands, similar to the Taste of Fort Collins event (although much smaller), so we walked around there for a little while, and then came home for some typical July 4th cuisine (hot dogs, watermelons, and chocolate chip cookies) before the fireworks.



The Fort Collins fireworks were at the City Park, which is just a few minutes walk from our apartment. We met up with Matt, one of the other AMD interns, who is another recent Michigan graduate, and sat out on a blanket at the foot of City Park Lake in time for a performance by the Fort Collins Symphony, who treated us (and thousands of others!) to the usual 4th songs, including "Stars and Stripes Forever", the "1812 Overture", and "America the Beautiful", before the fireworks began. They even continued their final song "Liberty", which included some spoken sections of the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and some famous U.S. speeches about halfway into the fireworks, which was neat. After a great fireworks grand finale that actually lit up the sky, it was just a short walk back home.


On Thursday, we headed back down to Boulder to see my friend Kevin from California and his girlfriend Kate (both recent Notre Dame grads). Kate lives near Denver, so Kevin was in town for a week and we were able to meet up and catch up over a nice Italian dinner at Pasta Jay's on Pearl Street in Boulder. We also checked out some shops and stopped for dessert at Haagen-Dazs ice cream. Kevin and Kate: Thanks for meeting up with us! That was a great time!



Here's Whitney at the Haagen Dazs (she's a handful sometimes, I tell you!):

Also, some neat origami from one of the Boulder art boutiques:

Over the weekend, we saw Ratatouille, the new Pixar movie, which we enjoyed. We've also played some tennis at the City Park since getting some cheap rackets at Target. Whitney (former high school tennis player) has been teaching me (took 3 lessons at the YMCA in 6th grade) as we go, so it's interesting, but certainly a fun thing to do to get out of the hot apartment at times. Luckily, it's supposed to cool down this week to the regular summer average of 85 (from the 95 degree weather we've been having lately).

Only five weeks left in Colorado, but still many things left to do and see!

(Humorous anecdote: As we were walking home from the Walrus Ice Cream shop in Old Town tonight, I saw many bikes outside the Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant and noted: "Wow, look how many people boke in for dinner tonight!" Good thing I'm an engineer and learned my English well!)

Yee-haw! Rodeo Time!

Last Saturday we went out to the Greeley Stampede to see a rodeo! Whitney was not too enthused about seeing a rodeo, but she's now glad we went!

Greeley is named after Horace Greeley, the 1800s newspaper editor who advised "Go west, young man". It's the next town east of Fort Collins, about 30 minutes away. We drove out there with two other summer interns from AMD, arriving a few events into the rodeo. The arena was outdoors, but had a cover over the horseshoe-shaped grandstand, keeping us out of the sun and cool on a near-100 degree day.

We missed various types of bronco riding, but still got to see some great events. We saw a few of the calf-roping cowboys, and then it was time for the rodeo clown's intermission special. A clown drove out into the arena with a "police officer" with him, claiming they were looking for an escaped convict dressed as an American Indian. Because they were chasing an Indian, the clown claimed he was a "cowboy". After driving around for a few minutes, their car broke down and a "construction worker" walked out onto the arena floor. Suddenly, an "Indian" jumped out of the trunk of the car, all four characters lined up, and the first strains of YMCA boomed out of the speakers. The entire crowd, including me, groaned that they didn't see the Village People reference coming, before standing up to join the Y-M-C-A-ing!

The second half of the rodeo led off with team roping, where one cowboy lassos a steer around the neck, and his teammate lassos the steers back feet, all in about 5 seconds. Pretty impressive skills.

The next event was my favorite: "Mutton busting" This event was the kids' event. 10 6-7 year old boys and girls, equipped in hockey helmets and flak jackets, took turns climbing onto the back of an upset sheep, who then ran the kid around the arena. If they could stay on for 6 seconds, they received a score. Only 2 or 3 of the kids stayed on for the required time, but they all had a great time. Here's a picture of the eventual winner:

(Click the pictures for a larger view)

After the mutton busting, the rodeo continued with the women's event of barrel racing, where horseriders navigate their horses around 3 large barrels before racing back to the start:

The rodeo wrapped up, as most rodeos do, with some bull riding. Always a fun event to watch, since there's nothing like an angry bull to create some action. Only about 4 of the riders stayed on for the full 8 seconds, but it was still fun to watch.

As a bonus event, they rolled out some very large ramps, and 3 dirt bike riders took turns soaring above the arena, climbing over their handlebars, spinning the bike sideways and back, and completing a backflip, all while 50 feet above the arena floor. Neat way to wrap up the rodeo!

Did Whitney have fun? Looks like it (especially after a super-large rodeo lemonade!)

Trolley

Hey all -- it's been awhile, but I just thought I'd throw up some pictures from last weekend. Saturday we went to Broomfield, CO for a trip to the bank (closest location for me) and later ended up at their shopping mall, Flatiron Crossing. As I told my sister, I thought it was funny that one of the anchor stores was a sporting goods store (Welcome to Colorado!) but overall it was a nice mall. We ate dinner at CPK, which I was nostalgic for because I used to go a lot with my mom.

Sunday was an important local tradition, the Colorado Brewers' Festival. Held in Downtown Fort Collins, this was its 18th year running. My parents will probably scold me for writing about beer again ("not another beer story!") but it's weird because beer really IS just a bigger part of life here. There are a TON of local breweries (many represented at the festival in their line-up of 32 companies), and I swear, there's beer at every event. Taste of Fort Collins? Beer tent. Tasting of restaurants at a local mall? Beer garden. 4th of July? TWO downtown beer gardens. It's kind of crazy, actually!

The festival is known for its long lines, but we went later on Sunday so it wasn't too bad. It was about a 100 degrees out, and I can't say I completely enjoyed myself, but I guess it was interesting to see. I wouldn't need to go back if I were here next year.

What I actually really liked about the day was getting there -- we took the Fort Collins trolley! This old restored trolley car runs from City Park (right next to our house) to downtown on weekends and holidays. Usually we bike to downtown, but we've wanted to check out the trolley and since it was so hot it gave us the perfect chance. It was actually really fun to ride. I couldn't believe what a nice breeze there was! Much better than you would expect for driving so slowly -- I don't know how they do it. Here are pictures of us on the trolley before it left:

The car cost $6000 when it was purchased in 1919. It was one of 4 bought by the city. At one time Fort Collins was the smallest city in the country to have a trolley, and they charged the lowest fare too (5 cents). A funny story is that the 4 cars, which weigh 8 tons each, were LOST during shipping. They showed up a few months later, and no one ever knew where they had been during that time!

I think it's great that the city put in the effort to have this historical ride. To wrap up, here are pictures of us at the park with the trolley:

This weekend so far, I've been to my first rodeo! We'll put up stories and pictures from that eventually!