We were in Fort Collins and we wanted to hike. Our afternoon plans were in Greeley, which was about 30 miles southeast, so it didn’t make sense to go too far west. We headed to Lory, the nearest state park. There weren’t a lot of people when we arrived, but it was filling up fast when we left. It’s my opinion that the park exists primarily to give the people of Fort Collins somewhere close by to go to.

I mean, it was pretty, but there are thousands of prettier places in the state. It might have been more impressive if we had taken the uphill trail to the top of a large rock formation. But the trail we took led over a couple of rises to the shore of the Horsetooth Reservoir, a large and rather unimpressive man-made body of water.

I carried my binoculars and spotted four birds on our two-mile hike. Not four species — four individual birds — two magpies, a flicker, and a Common Loon that was drifting out in the lake. There were a few gulls too far out to identify, and gulls don’t count anyway.

On the Friday after Thanksgiving we went to Fort Collins because …

We didn’t really have a reason. We headed downtown in search of a reason to be there. Here’s what we found.

A tribute to Andy Warhol on the campus of Colorado State University.

Downtown, with a lot of crafty stores and an impressive amount of Christmas lights.

We happened upon Mary’s Mountain Cookies. I bought a turtle cookie. My wife bought an almond sugar cookie with frosting. We didn’t get around to eating them until the next day, but they were very good.

For supper we went to Totally 80’s Pizza. The pizza was edible (but I still have yet to find any evidence that anyone in Colorado knows how to make pizza), but the place was fun. It was decorated as a museum of the 1980’s and brought back a lot of memories.

The night was still young. We wandered the aisles of a Barnes & Noble for an hour, then went to see The Man Who Invented Christmas at a theater very close to the Hampton Inn where we were staying. It was a fictionalized account of how Charles Dickens came up with the idea of A Christmas Carol and, thereby, changed the way we celebrate Christmas. It was fairly slow moving and didn’t have a lot to do with Christmas, but it beat sitting in a hotel room.

Bill Swets was a farmer who created his sculpture park just for fun. He fashioned about 180 creatures out of scrap metal and machine parts. They all sit in a dilapidated yard along the Cache la Poudre River near Fort Collins. The city is encroaching swiftly, and the zoo probably won’t last long if someone doesn’t start taking care of it.

The park doesn’t have quite the scope and flair of Dr. Evermor’s Sculpture Park in Wisconsin, but it’s got it’s highlights. In no particular order …

A little jab at Bill Clinton.

Probably not worth a long drive by itself, but if you’re in the Fort Collins area, it’s definitely a fun way to spend a half hour or so.

The sanctuary is located in the barren high desert northwest of Denver. It exists to house animals that are confiscated from or donated by zoos, circuses, and private owners. Once here, the animals are introduced to others of their species and released into large enclosures. All of that is great. But they go way over the top with the propaganda about animal rights and saving lives.

The price of admission was $30 per person plus a donation — which isn’t really a donation if it’s required. We had to watch a video about the importance of their mission. and we were given a booklet with the stories of all the animals, which all sounded very much alike. “Animal name was kept in a small cage at an amusement park/zoo/backyard until the owner couldn’t/wouldn’t/didn’t want to take care of it anymore. Now animal name enjoys peace and friendship in a large enclosure with plenty to eat and a nice safe burrow.”

Supposedly, animals view humans on the ground as a threat or invasion, but humans on a boardwalk are ignored. The boardwalk extends more than a mile from the entrance tent to the tiger roundhouse. All of the cages have underground bunkers accessible through cement sewer pipes, and many of the animals were nowhere to be seen.

Signs placed by the various enclosures all said pretty much the same thing too — the animal was kept in a cage by itself until it acclimated. Then it was put in another cage next to the group area. Once it was accepted by the group, it was allowed out in the big area.

The lions were active early on, pacing and roaring and running.

A few other animals were lying about or wandering slowly across their areas.

Lynx

Wolves

Black Bear (most of the bears were hibernating)

Grizzly Bear

Tigers

At the end of the walkway was the tiger roundhouse. Since tigers are loners in the wild, it takes longer to acclimate them to being around other tigers. They’re kept in smaller cages but allowed out, one at a time, into a larger area with a waterfall.

They’ve also rescued some animals that aren’t large predators” — ike ostriches, camels, horses, alpacas, and some coyotes and wolves that were at least half dog.

When we finished looking, we had the long walk back the way we came. Some animals that had been out earlier had disappeared. A few others were out that weren’t earlier. There were many more people going the other way that we had to dodge around, although it doesn’t look like it from this photo.

Of more interest to me than the animals were the birds that knew a good thing when they saw it. There was an immense flock of starlings and another of Ring-billed Gulls with a few Herring Gulls mixed in. When they put out the meat for the animals, the birds congregated and, I’m sure, ate much more food than the animals. I did see one wolf who made a point of patrolling his cage scaring off the birds, but otherwise they pretty much had their feast.

But in addition to the starlings and gulls, I spotted a Ferruginous Hawk, a Northern Harrier, an American Kestrel, and four Bald Eagles. I also think I saw a Prairie Falcon.

We were there maybe two hours. We’re glad we went, but don’t feel a strong need to go again.