I am a day behind. This post is coming from Lincoln Nebraska on our way home across the plains (BTW kudos to Courtyard Marriott for providing what I consider to be my first “good” Marriott service post COVID-19). Today’s post is mainly about yesterday. In planning our journey home, we decided to spend two nights (a full day) in Fort Collins for a variety of reasons. One: I have been to FoCo and Louise and River has not. Two, River really enjoyed a short tour of CU Boulder and I have good connections to CSU and would be pretty happy if they ended up there.

Three: Pies and beer. The day dawned smokey but fresh. Louise had work to do in the morning, so I worked on photos and generally catching up with my own work with the decent internet back down on the Colorado foothills. After that we headed to campus for the self-guided tour after a chat in admissions. They had a mockup dorm room which was a clever move by CSU as it allows students to imagine life on campus. We then followed that with an app guided tour. CSU is very impressive, amazing facilities. In Australia we do not get the same level of “fringe benefits” like the rec center at CSU. I know I would very much like access to the climbing wall, gear rental and swimming pool. River did accuse us of enjoying the tour more than themselves a few times (they may have been right). Tour done we headed to a place I was introduced to by my good friend and collaborator, Brenda: The Waltzing Matilda. GREAT pies. I checked with Louise, and we agree this is the most authentic Aussie pie experience we have had outside of Australia (and that is a good thing). What pleased me more was seeing how River wolfed down their pie. You can take the kid out of Australia, but you can’t take the Aussie out of the kid. Next stop, albeit recently commercialized by a corporate takeover, was New Belgian brewing. I love the beer garden set up they have. So communal, beer, dogs, kids, and open space. Very Colorado. Back to the Residence Inn for a last night in Chicago. Catching up on email, writing yesterday’s blog and getting my head back in the game.. And, again, more looking at properties in the Lake County are.. Yes.. I think this thing may happen.