Fancy dress or ‘dressing up’ as Americans call it, is really big here. It’s taken very seriously by adults as well as children and some of the costumes people make are fantastic. To get in the American spirit, Cat and I take part whenever we can, and do our best to make an effort.

Every year the New Belgium brewery puts on a load of fancy dress cycle’s around the US, culminating in a party and gig at a local New Belgium brewery. The costumes are amazing, and the weather warm (start of September). These are by now means the best, but just about average from what I saw:

I took this costume to be Left Shark from Kate Perry’s Super Bowl XLIX halftime Show (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmcWZ2Bzoho). The next is a classic example of how do you combine Fort Collins 3 favorite things: Dogs, Biking and beer?

I like to think the dog is giving directions. This next one probably looks innocuous but was a massive burn to Colorado State University at the time.

The week before Tour De Fat, my University (Colorado State University) played against Colorado University in the local derby at Mile High Stadium (where the Denver Broncos play). We ended up losing 17 – 3 although it is probably the worst refereeing I have ever seen in a sporting event. Without going on a massive rant, local papers ran headlines such as “Officials make a mess of Buffs’ win in Rocky Mountain Showdown” – The Denver Post. So dressing up as the Colorado referee (with the little yellow handkerchief to throw for fouls) was actually pretty excellent.

I decided to go left field and bring Christmas to Fort Collins early. Here I am dressed as a Christmas tree, plugged into the wall so my lights can be on.

For the record, it was about 86 F (30 C) during the cycle, but I kept my hat on and only lost 3 baubles.

More recently, Cat and I were invited out for Halloween fancy dress at a nice cocktail bar. Our friends Cody and Mollie had friends visiting and wanted to go as characters from the TV show Game of Thrones. Once again, me and Cat skipped all the main / sensible characters and went as White Walkers (imagine a Zombie in Antarctica):

I think we look jolly scary, although having to learn about putting eye liner inside your eyes was probably the scariest bit for me. Here is our group all out after the cocktail bar. Bonus points to people who can guess the other main characters.

By far the funniest bit of the evening was out friend Mollie trying to say “you know nothing John Snow” in a Scottish accent after a few cocktails. Sadly no description could do it justice, it was just a you-had-to-be-there moment.

Finally, earlier that same week on the actual day of Halloween, our volleyball team (Team Cooper) had our last league game of the season and decided to dress up as Wilson from the Movie Castaway.

Wilson is a volleyball who becomes the closest friend to Tom Hanks when he is deserted on an island. His face is a bloody and print (see the front of our t-shirts above) and Wilson (Tom Hanks) was nicely played by Cody (middle back with the fake beard).

We even got our branding right and I think you’ll agree we did a good job (even though we lost 3-0 haha)

Rob

This fall, Cat and I have been trying a strange combination of getting healthy whilst simultaneously trying out new restaurants and breweries. This has taken on many strange forms, for example we are both now running buddies for Toby:

Toby is a 5 year old chocolate lab / pointer cross who absolutely adores us (owned by one of our sets of American surrogate parents). He LOVES walks and runs more than anybody else loves anything, and has 4 speed settings:

1. Sit politely (especially at a crosswalk / zebra crossing as he has been well trained)
2. Trot casually (this happens to be exactly the speed Cat and I run at, although he does make a sound like somebody sawing wood instead of panting)
3. Gallop very fast (this is too fast for me to run any sensible distance and I have been slowly teaching him “slow” as a way to not pull me over)
4. Sprint (saved for when rabbits or squirrels are about)

Cat always says he knows me as ‘sweaty man‘ as I used to take him for runs on my own, and she was known as ‘head scratching lady‘, as you can tell from the happy face in this picture:

For me, the volleyball season has just ended so I have switched from Volleyball 3 times a week to the gym, running and swimming. My team managed to make the playoffs but sadly got stuffed in the quarter final thanks to some poor playing and bad luck. However, we did end up entering two teams this year from our friends / work colleagues, so Cat kindly came along to take some photos of my team’s glorious 3-0 victory.

Here I am pretending I know how to serve (notice the space jam themed team t-shirts):

… and here I am spiking (hitting the ball) at least 4 inches off the ground:

We have also been trying to eat a little healthier. This is surprisingly hard in America as all the portions are scaled up and most of the fruit and veg is organic; going off after about 1-2 days. Cat was pleased that I have mastered cauliflower rice and steak.

The trick is to marinade the steak in salt and pepper, then add onion and garlic to the rice for seasoning. I promise it is more tasty than it looks.

Just to keep us sane, Cat kindly took me on a date to a gin and wine distillery (http://www.coppermuse.com/). This place has awesome food and awesome cocktails, like this delicious old fashioned in a mug.

They also have board games on the tables, so me and Cat played some chess. I managed to win 1 game and force a draw in the second from a losing position (which I was shamefully pleased with), though Cat may have bent / added some new rules based on resurrection, as when I cam back from the bar this is what awaited me (Cat is white in this game):

Despite these efforts, we are still only at 8/19 breweries and 4/5 distilleries visited in Fort Collins alone! At least this will keep us busy through the winter.

Rob

Somebody reading our blog may justifiably assume all we do is go on holiday to wonderful places like Moab, Tulum, and Seattle. Sadly we can’t be on holiday all the time, but we still find ways to get up to mischief in Fort Collins.

This summer when Mum and Dad (the Channon’s) visited, we were slightly concerned if we could find new things to do as we had already proved Fort Collins is awesome the last winter when they visited. Fortunately (as is a common Channon trait), we managed to get into all sorts of unexpected mischief around town. We started off with a trip to The Whiskey, a bar with over 1700 whiskeys from around the world. You may notice from the picture above that Cat has a whiskey-free crazy green cocktail – basically the equivalent of ordering fish and chips in a Indian restaurant – but they rest of us really enjoyed the whiskey, atmosphere and strangely polite waiter. (Cat admittedly does describe the taste of whiskey as pthe pthe pthe, so it’s only fair)

Next, was the Fort fun softball batting cages for Dad to demonstrate his Cut shot through the covers…

… and Mum to let the ball know who was boss:

I also wanted to play some golf while they were here (as last time they visited it was negative Celsius). Cat suggested we should warm up with some mini golf to work on our putting, which worked surprisingly well as 3 of us had hole in 1’s!

With this celebration from Mum probably winning the most style points, especially after hitting her ball out of bounds a few holes earlier:

Afterwards Dad and I played real golf at Collindale golf course in a somewhat overheating 98 F (about 38 C). This picture below was Dad’s second favorite as he called it “Oops I forgot to hit the ball”:

With his favorite being the HOLE IN ONE I hit about 3 holes later:

(This was my best impression of a politely smug golfer, notice the pitch mark at the front of the green)

Hole in one’s are very rare at amateur levels (maybe 1 per lifetime playing golf), so it was really nice to hit one at 177 yards on round with Dad there. He also called it as soon as I hit it, but I was convinced that that sort of thing doesn’t happen to janky golfers like me and it must have gone off the back of the green, wasn’t I surprised! Now you might think this is about the most unusually and exciting thing that could happen during the holiday but then we went for a casual hike…

The Arthur’s Rock trail in Lory State park is one of out favorite local hikes as its moderately challenging and the views of Fort Collins and the reservoir are fantastic from 1000 ft higher altitude:

Mum and Dad were very excited to see some American wildlife, and sure enough we spotted a Turkey Vulture right at the top of the trail:

Here is Cat standing a very safe distance away from Terrance:

Now put yourself in our shoes. You have been hiking and seen some pretty birds and butterflies. You are vaguely keeping an eye out for any bears or other big wildlife, so you are walking back down the trail looking most up and sometimes in the distance. What you are not expecting at this point in as encounter with a rattle snake!

(spot the camouflage tiny friend)

This cheeky chappy was about a foot from the trail, and rather than pre-warning me and Dad who were chatting and could be heard coming from a distance, the rattle snake decided to angrily shake is rattle when we were right beside him. Needless to say we both screamed like little girls and jumped away (jumping backwards uphill on a trail is no mean feat!). A ranger came by and told us that they are poisonous, but can only spring half of their body length so we were probably fine. He had about 8 rattles on his tail which makes him 8 years old apparently (you learn something new every day).

At the end of our holiday, we all went to our local pub (the forge) for a nice quiet sit down, happy to safe from all the excitement.

Rob