Return to Denver

July 26, 2019July 26, 2019 | jamiefeinberg

Well, we’ve been parked in Denver for the last three weeks, and as usual for Colorado, we loved it!

Though I was traveling most of the time, we had a great time, enjoying an awesome park with four lakes next to our campground, performing at Your Mom’s House and the All Terrain Yoga at the Boulder Farmer’s Market and visiting new and favorite spots for ice cream, gluten-free treats and hard cider as well as open mics.

The only bummer in the area was that Ross’ favorite bar is desperately raising money to stay in business. We love you, Dungeons and Drafts!

We also got to catch up with my friend from high school, Melanie.

Here are a few highlights from our time!

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Visiting A Botanical Garden in Fort Collins, CO

August 10, 2018August 9, 2018 | jamiefeinberg

As you may know, I’m a sucker for flowers, nature and gardens of all types. The older I get, the more I realize this is true and seem to embrace it.

For instance, last night I was stressed and tryin to avoid a panic attack. My solution was to take a walk on the nature trail here in the park.

When I started walking, I was wishing I had a friend who’d take my call after 10 pm. By four minutes in, I was filled with gratitude, pure and simple, for my surroundings. It was almost an immediate fix. Telling, right?

So Thursday morning, I made a trip to the City of Fort Collins’ botanical garden. They suggest a donation of $5 for admission, although that felt a little steep to me today. (By next year, that would be a steal, once the construction and expansion are complete.)

I could tell you stories about their outdoor kitchen and Garden of Eaten, and rave about the colors and flowers I saw. But instead, I will just share some photos, so you can enjoy too. Thanks for stopping by!

Daytripping with Dad

June 10, 2018June 9, 2018 | jamiefeinberg

A couple of weeks back, we were really blessed to have Ross’ dad visit us from New Hampshire. He flew in early Tuesday, with plans to fly out Saturday evening.

Despite the fact that it was his birthday and he’d flown out to see us, he basically treated us the entire week, so we had to get sneaky if we wanted to pay for anything.

We had an incredible week. Tuesday evening he visited us at the campground and then we headed downtown for an outstanding Brazilian meal that was almost entirely gluten-free. Apparently it’s a chain, but the experience was truly special, with outstanding salads at an epic buffet, an assortment of appetizers (with additional on offer) and then an endless array of meats brought to the table. Finally we saw the dessert tray, and much of it was gluten-free. We highly recommend this experience, even for the less adventurous among us! Outstanding. Also, Happy Birthday, Stephen!

Wednesday wasn’t a teaching day, so we headed to Cheyenne, Wyoming just to say we did. The Visitor’s Center was absolutely outstanding, with amazing exhibits, and then we headed to Dad’s Cafe, an incredible allergen-free cafe where the entire place is gluten-free! We enjoyed our soups, sandwiches and cookies before spending the afternoon visiting local museums. The first was free, and the latter (we treated Stephen) was perfect if you enjoy railroad memorabilia or miniatures.

After our day in Cheyenne, we headed into downtown Fort Collins for some tasty Mexican food (and a great gluten-free menu). We capped it off with dessert at Walrus ice cream because we were too drunk to drive yet! It was okay, but the gluten-free cone was delicious and Stephen loved his sundae.

On Thursday, Jamie spent the morning writing a blog post while Stephen adventured on his own. Then we hit the Museum of Discovery which does an incredible job of creating an interdisciplinary, hands-on museum experience unique to Fort Collins and the area. After the museum, we took a distillery tour, enjoyed a few drinks and went back for more Mexican food.

Friday, Stephen spent the day hanging out while we worked. We had a campfire that night with a singalong, and he helped tend it and took a few train rides with Ross.

Saturday we did more work at the campground while Stephen surprised us and spent the day again. He managed to stay pretty cool despite the heat and we definitely enjoyed the company before he headed to the airport.

We had an amazing week, honestly feeling like it was a vacation for us. Thank you for your visit! It was so great to see you.

We will share further details on some of the highlights in future blogs. Thanks for reading and have an awesome week on your own adventures!

Finding Fun in Fort Collins

May 18, 2018May 17, 2018 | jamiefeinberg

As predicted, we still haven’t gotten our act together on RV repairs, but we’re certainly enjoying our time here. We do get a bit of an employee discount on cabins here, so if any of our readers want to visit us in Fort Collins, let us know and we can get you a discount at the campground. 🙂

One of the best things about Fort Collins is how incredibly bike-friendly it is. There are so many miles of walking/bike/equestrian trails, and if we had bikes, we’d have an easy 3 mile drive to downtown from here. Throughout the city, bike signage is super-clear and bikes are everywhere. They also have a bus system, which is a nice option I imagine, but if we lived here we’d definitely bike 80% of the time – at least until winter!

So this past week, I did some further exploring of the closest bike trail to us. I didn’t walk all the way to Old Town, the historic downtown area, but I walked about three miles of farms, forests, river and housing. It’s a beautiful and very popular trail. It’s also where we buried Bear, the second kitten we lost.

We also visited Dungeons and Drafts. It’s an adorable geek bar where the decorations, menu and activities cater to geeks and weirdos like us. We went to their comedy open mic, which was great. They take musicians if time allows, so we were hoping, but it didn’t. We’re hoping since we stayed until the end and all the comics loved Ross’ laughter, they’ll let us sing some geeky songs when we return.

The bar is fabulous. It’s reminiscent of a medieval castle, with a giant tower of games to borrow and play. (We tried Ticket to Ride, which we loved!) We each had a couple of drinks (which we never do, but it was pretty affordable for a treat) and shared a giant plate of amazing BBQ pulled pork nachos.

We’re looking forward to heading back there. Otherwise, the big excitement might be that Jamie went to Second Friday in Loveland, which was fun but nowhere near as cool as Longmont or Fort Collins, and she ended the night with two chocolate chip cookies with vanilla frosting in between them. Gluten-free goodies from Mary’s Mountain Cookies are legit!

And finally, if you’re looking for a kitten update, we just started eating canned kitten food, but mom is still feeding them too. Stay tuned for cat box adventures….

That’s it from Fort Collins. Have a great week, and thanks for reading!

Still Roughing It in Fort Collins

May 11, 2018May 9, 2018 | jamiefeinberg

We are so delighted to be here in Fort Collins, with full hookups, but we’ve still got lots of RV issues that need addressing and questions that need asking. The biggest annoyance? Our gray water tank hasn’t been able to flush since before we reached Fort Collins- it’s an issue with the valve release, we believe.

No gray water tank means we have no easy way to wash hands or wash dishes. And that got old about a week or so in. After all, we’ve got a pretty nice RV…to have to live like you’re tent camping inside it is absolutely a first world problem, but it gets frustrating, especially when you live in that RV year-round and not just on weekends.

We’ve got a growing list of additional, urgent repairs. We need the housing under the house batteries, which rusted out almost completely and is currently held in place by a fake tourist license plate, replaced in a more secure fashion. We need our house batteries looked at and almost definitely replaced. We need our fantastic fan cover (the one over our living space) replaced – it ripped, probably due to wind, in Florida, and of course we realized it in the middle of a horrible rainstorm. (Thank you, Ross!)

Add to that the usual maintenance – general inspection ideal, and oil change necessary – and we’ve got a lot to do before the winter.

How we do it is still to be decided. We know we will find a Mobile RV tech for the gray tank. My personal hope is we love that RV tech so much that we then ask him to do the other stuff on our list. If he’s able to, we can then take the RV in for at least an oil change when we leave Fort Collins…or even wait and do it in the winter, provides everything else is running well for us.

Our schedule is super-roomy currently, so if you’re in Denver/Boulder/Fort Collins etc., we’d love to get together. But when we are done here in late September, we’ve got a very tight schedule to get to New Hampshire for two months of ukulele classes for older adults plus other gigs and projects.

So I’d really love to get all the repairs done prior to departure, drop the rig off in storage for a couple of months (or possibly at a cheap, safe RV park if that feels like a better fit) and then run back to New England for the fall.

If by any chance you have RV mechanic recommendations in CO or NM, let us know. Otherwise, thanks for reading, and here are a few kitten photos for your troubles!

Pizza Victory in Fort Collins

May 4, 2018May 2, 2018 | jamiefeinberg

When you’re gluten-free, any pizza is a treat, but we recently hit the holy grail of pizza places in Fort Collins. For food reasons alone, Colorado is going to be very hard to leave!

Trigger warning: pet death

I’ve been gluten-free for almost two years now for health reasons. Way back when, I’m search of relief from auto-immune issues (both known and mysterious), I began an elimination diet, and the auto-immune protocol really helped me. Gluten was quickly proven to be extremely problematic for me, and as my favorite foods were bread and dessert, going gluten-free was tough.

Honestly, on a day to day basis, it’s become pretty easy, but in social situations and going out to eat, eating can still be really stressful (instead of enjoyable, as it should be). So every once and a while, I enjoy gluten-free indulgences.

This past week has been challenging. On top of training and being trained at work, we lost another kitten, Bear, which was really sad. So Sunday evening, before our grocery shopping run, we decided to treat ourselves to pizza. A quick search of the Find Me Gluten Free app showed excellent reviews for The Garlic Knot in Fort Collins. There are lots of places to get gluten-free pizza here, but when I saw that their menu offered a large gluten-free pizza (you usually can’t choose sizes) and gluten-free garlic bread, I was sold.

They warn that the pizza will take a half hour (if it’s gluten-free), but since we ordered garlic bread, the wait wasn’t bad. Ross got amazing glutenous garlic knots, and I got their gluten-free garlic bread. Wow. The texture of the bread wasn’t exactly what I expected, but it was crispy and quite good, covered in delicious mozzarella and with their homemade marinara for dipping. It was outrageous. It reminded me so, so much of the calzones I’ve been craving since going gluten-free, and it took all my self-control to save half for home.

Ross and I then shared a 14″ pineapple and “breakfast bacon” pizza. The bacon was delicious and very finely chopped. Best of all? It tasted almost like a real pizza crust! The crust is my favorite part, so that is such a big deal to me. Heaven.

Service was great, atmosphere is beautiful but casual and it’s laid out well for pickup or eat in. They also have ice cream available for dessert, as well as other delicious options.

So I think we found our pizza and garlic bread place!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Garlic Knot.

One more non-food update. I’ve been asked to write more blogs for Outdoorsy. 🙂 This paid writer thing is pretty great!

Have a great week, friends, and thanks for reading.

Settling in and Kitten Adventures

April 27, 2018May 2, 2018 | jamiefeinberg

We’ve now been in Fort Collins for about a week and a half, and we’re happy to be stretching our legs a bit after a month or so of RV travel. It’s always nice to settle in…not having to pack up regularly and having full hookups (that we don’t have to pay for) are major perks that make giving up regular travel easier.

Of course, we aren’t the type to sit still! We’ve already visited local music and gaming stores, sampled homemade ice cream and gelato, and today, we visited Longmont, CO’s great downtown and explored a bookstore, music store and a dedicated gluten-free bakery and cafe. (It’s definitely a town we will return to. The cafe was fabulous, and there’s a homemade ice cream place we haven’t tried yet!)

Bakery Display at Aime's Love, Longmont, CO | Ross and Jamie Adventure — Bakery Display at Aime’s Love, Longmont, CO

Alley art, Longmont, CO | Ross and Jamie Adventure — Beautiful alley art in Longmont, CO

Gelato & aMore, Fort Collins, CO | Ross and Jamie Adventure — All the deliciousness at Gelato & aMore, Fort Collins, CO

The Woodshed, Fort Collins, CO | Ross and Jamie Adventure — Visiting one The Woodshed in Fort Collins, CO

Walrus Ice Cream, Fort Collins, CO | Ross and Jamie Adventure — The bright exterior of Walrus Ice Cream in Fort Collins, CO

RV Site in Fort Collins, CO | Ross and Jamie Adventure — Settled in for the summer!

We’re truly enjoying being so close to great food and services with a view of the Rockies in the background. Today the kittens went to the vet…we’ve got a couple of infections to treat and have a couple of medications to give out daily. Squeak was cool as a cucumber the entire time, and there’s really not much cuter than a cat carrier full of kittens and mom.

Cats in an RV, Fort Collins, CO | Ross and Jamie Adventure — Squeak and Bear (formerly known as Groot)

Kittens in Colorado | Ross and Jamie Adventure — What a face, right?

Kittens in an RV | Ross and Jamie Adventure

The campground work is off to a good start, and we’ve got some great employees to work with. It’s a beautiful campground, and I’m especially excited about the nature walk, which I typically walk twice a day. Here are some of the gorgeous photos from my walks around the campground. Fort Collins, CO | Ross and Jamie Adventure

We’re hoping to make quick trips to Boulder and Denver, as well as Colorado Springs, while we are here for the summer. We’d also love to book some gigs on our days off.

Want to host us for a night? Have ideas on where we need to visit? Let us know.

And if you enjoyed this, perhaps you’d also enjoy hearing about our adventures settling in Orlando or visiting Austin. We’ve also got a fun post on Disney for adults. Thanks for reading!

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Fort Collins