I had promised to do a wedding in Fort Collins, today. I would have come down yesterday, but with the continued rain and flooding I waited until today. When I left Wheatland, skies were clear and I settled in for a nice ride. Creeks that run under the Interstate were swollen since we also had rain during this incident.
Everything changed about 30 miles north the Colorado border. The low lying clouds, which I could touch with a long pole if I had one, were dark and ominous. As I drove into the cloudy area, I felt like I was going into a parking garage with a low ceiling: such a gloomy feeling to the world. I felt bad for the bride and groom, whose weekend plans with family got somewhat derailed due to the flooding. Now, more bad weather.
Yet, everything changed again, for the better. As I approached Fort Collins the sky cleared. Patchy white clouds stood out against a bright blue sky. The wedding venue is away from the flooding, but, to check into my hotel, I had to cross the Cache La Poudre River, one of the area rives that is flooding. Waters have slowed down from what I saw on television reports, but mud is everywhere. I saw down street lights, downed power poles, upended trees. Fields on the edge of town, as I came in, had lots of standing water. I crossed the river again coming out to the wedding venue, a beautiful old home with gorgeous surrounding for the outdoor wedding.
After all my recent travels with White Cloud and Half Moon, it was strange driving down here in my car. It will be even stranger staying in a hotel. Of course I still brought Tango who is currently at our pet friendly hotel.
Time to get some photos of this beautiful place. I still have an hour and a half before the wedding.
Cache La Poudre River (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
- Rogue Poudre River: N. Shields bridge holding; river floods bike trail (video) – Fort Collins – Colorado (hoofprints.typepad.com)
- Colorado floods: Evacuations, road closures create havoc for Fort Collins, Boulder, Jefferson County (denverpost.com)
- Cache La Poudre River Flooding At Epic Proportions (k99.com)
- Disaster area declared for Fort Collins, northern Colo. (kdvr.com)