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Ah, home! Can you smell that sweet, fresh, Colorado air? You're looking at plenty of it in this picture--along with Horsetooth Rock and Horsetooth Reservoir, above Fort Collins, my home town. The rock (named for a horse's front bottom teeth) has been there for thousands and thousands of years, but the reservoir was created only about fifty years ago by building some dams to hold water in a valley behind the front range of foothills above Fort Collins.

The town was named after the original log fort that was built in 1864 along the banks of the Cache la Poudre River. (Years before the fort was built, the river was named by French fur traders who trapped beaver in the vicinity and hid a supply of gunpowder along the river banks.) The fort was abandoned in the 1860s, but the settlement that had grown up around it retained its name. Nothing remains of the original fort today, except that locals refer to our town as "The Fort."

Fort Collins, the home of Colorado State University, has a population of nearly 120,000 and is growing fast. It sits at the very edge of the prairies, where the flat land gives way to the Rocky Mountains. If we weren't so close to the foothills in this picture, you'd see the snow-capped mountains behind them. The elevation of the town is right at 5,000 feet (1,524 meters), just 280 feet (85.3 meters) below the Mile High City, Denver, which is 50 miles (80 kilometers) to the south.

Flat Teddy and I are very glad to be home again in this lovely place. There are so many pictures and stories of beautiful places and people we've encountered in our journey through 36 other states and the District of Columbia, but to us this state, Colorado, is definitely the best of all. After traveling 24,000 miles (38,600 kilometers) in ten months in Charlie Brown, it's good to be home again. (Charlie is happy to be home, too.) Thanks for coming along with us. We've enjoyed having you log in to keep us company.