So, our trip.....

It turned into more of a 'Let's go see Cheyenne, WY' than a ''Let's go see Ft. Collins' trip.

We left Colo Spr later than we'd originally planned - actually fueled up and rolling by 0920.

Traffic on I-25 wasn't too bad, but I did have 1 issue North of Denver with a guy who tail-gated me and tried to slingshot around me to attempt to cut me off, twice. I was barely maintaining a safe following distance from the guy in front of me as it was...I have no idea where this guy thought he was going to go. After his second failed attempt to cut me off I saw him reach for someting. At that point I ensured my protective device was within arms reach yet still put away. Cell phone was in hand preparing to dial *CSP. I planned to just move over after I got past the next group of cars I was passing, but this guy found a route to pass everyone on the right. As he passed me he glared at me. Meh, tough titties bro. After that, it was fairly smooth sailing (until the trip home).

We decided to go to Cheyenne first backtrack through Ft. Fun on the return leg. Since I check out every new member on the site, I've become familiar with the name of lots of smaller towns in CO that I wouldn't have heard of otherwise. We needed to stretch our legs, use the bathroom & let the wife smoke so we pulled off & stopped at a Wal-Mart. I hadn't paid any attention to which exit this was (it would be revosited later on); turns out this was at Timnath. As we were leaving, I looked to the SE side and I saw these interested metal sculptures. Something was nagging at my mind that welded sculptures had been mentioned. Then I saw the sign for Swetsville. AHA! I remembered you all mentioning it & suggesting we check that out...but, the wife wasn't interested. Maybe another day. On to Cheyenne.

At least 16 years ago I had been TDY a couple of times to F.E. Warren AFB so I had a little knowledge of the town. I took my wife around by the Nat. Guard base and the mall. We stopped by F.E. Warren where I gave my wife a tour of the base. I wish I could have arranged for her to get a tour of the missile silos, but it wasn't to be - they were using them for Security Forces & missile crew training. I showed her the 90th Missile Wing HQ, 20th AF HQ, which of the historic barracks I stayed in during my trips, and the Base Exchange. Next, we drove through the main part of the downtown of Cheyenne and stopped by Sportsman's Warehouse and a gun store (Rocky Mtn something or other). I did see a ton of Asian restaurants and told my wife what jmg8550 said about them.

It was after 2 when we left Cheyenne and headed back South. I had some directions I wrote down for getting into Ft. Collins to check out some antique stores. We needed to turn off I-25 at the Harmony Rd exit & head West. Wait, Harmony Rd? This is the exit with the Timnath Wal-Mart. Was a greater power trying to tell me something a out my trip earlier in the day? Naw, just an interesting coincidence. We headed along Harmony to NB College Ave. It was around 3PM - on a Friday afternoon. Traffic was PACKED. By the time we finally made it to Prospect my wife made me turn around. I estimated that we were pretty close to the College, and Old Town, etc. (I found out later by looking at Google maps that we were only about a block away). She didn't care, the back-to-back traffic was not pleasing her and she just wanted to get out of there. Backtracking to I-25 we went. We got to SB I-25 and within 5 miles ran into heavy congestion. Within another 10 or so miles our die was cast and we were stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic until we got South of Castle Rock. That was a LONG & stressful drive. I wish we had just stayed in Ft. Collins, checked things out, drove South to Loveland and checked it out, had dinner, etc. and just wasted time until all of the Friday evening rush hour(s) traffic thinned.

Lessons learned?

  • Start out earlier


  • Don't let traffic redirect you from your original plan because it will still be an issue & you won't get the benefit of what you planned. But remain loose with the plan.


  • Consider high-traffic times along entire travel route and plan to be anywhere but places where traffic will be bad. This means you might have to spend more time enjoying the trip instead of fighting it.


  • Stick with the loose agenda & don't go back to the tight scripted agenda where we have a timeline with zero margin for error. It's less stressful this way.


We got home around 7PM and, thanks to the traffic, I was totally exhausted. I would have preferred to spend more time in Ft. collins checking things out and avoiding the traffic, but... This just gives us an excuse to go back there!