Days #8-9 in CO: Horsetooth Reservoir Swimming, Sofas, Shopping & More Climbing

2018-07-19Friends, Us, USA Standard

[Photos taken on 19-20 July 2018, posted on 17 January 2019.  Winter is here at long last.  Not sure how long it will last.]

We happened to be in Colorado at the same time as some other old friends from California, and were lucky enough to be able to hang out for a day with them. They knew of a great beach by a reservoir a short distance away from where they were staying in Fort Collins.

The day after we re-arranged sofa pieces, went shopping for a bit, and then visited the climbing area in the local recreation center for the first, and not the last time, as the younger kids fell in love with climbing with ropes. (30-ish images)

Thursday 19 July 2018

This fine day, we drove up to Fort Collins to meet up with old friends from California. They took us to this place: The beach at the Horsetooth Reservoir.
The view as we were climbing up into the foothills above Fort Collins.
It’s a very long and skinny body of water.
A good thing we weren’t camping!
We found an empty table to eat lunch at. The beach was a little ways further.
The big structure overlooking the beach was being used for a private party.
Bjarki chilling in a tube, trying to increase his body heat.
Animated gif showing the view from the beach.
Finnur lounging. The inner tubes from the tubing trip the day before really came in handy!
Two kiddos in the water. It wasn’t super warm, but not too chilly either.
Selfie!
The view up the hill.
The sun came and went as clouds passed by. Here’s a sunny shot.
The kiddos as we were packing up. Anna and Justin used to play together on the Stanford campus back in the day!
Time to say goodbye!
Driving back the way we came along the reservoir. I think that’s the beach we were at on the far bank.
Bjarki doing his Home Alone impression outside of the restaurant we were about to eat dinner at.
Dinner time with a large crowd!

Friday 20 July 2018

We decided to have a relaxing day after our big water-outing, and ended up rearranging the sofas in the living room, mixing in the sofa pieces we’d fetched from Ikea earlier in the week.
Emma showing a creation.
Finnur needed to visit the Google office in Boulder again, so Anna and I tagged along to do a bit of shopping in the adjacent mall.
Waiting for Finnur to escort us inside the big G.
We grabbed a quick lunch, because, why not?!
Finnur remembered he’d also meant to buy some clothes, so we went shopping, but only Finnur found anything. I was tempted by this hat though!
That afternoon we visited the local rec center, which had this amazing climbing area. Here Emma is almost all the way up, and Bjarki is gearing up.
Bjarki’s gym practice again came in handy, as he had no trouble climbing at all.
There were two auto-belay lines, and two assistants who held ropes for the climbers.
Emma rappelling down from the top. On her first climb, she had no clue how to control her descent, and basically twirled and bumped her back into the wall the whole way down. She then did a great job climbing up a little ways and getting the hang of “falling” down, until she felt confident enough to climb all the way up, and bouncing beautifully down.
Bjarki working his way past the outwards leaning challenge!
The usual dinner pandemonium in the kitchen. 🙂