Fort Collins Colorado Temple
October 10, 2017
When I was able to get a $104 round-trip ticket from Washington DC to Denver, I jumped on it and used it as an excuse to come out and visit the Fort Collins Temple.
I landed in Denver at about 11:30 at night and found a secluded corner of the airport to fall asleep. At about 5 AM I caught the train into Union Station and arrived there at about six. The round-trip train ride is only $9! The one-hour bus ride to Fort Collins is only $10 one-way. It would leave at 7:30 so I had about 45 minutes to kill.
Getting some funky hot chocolate is a great way to kill 45 minutes!
From there it was onto the bus and more sleep on the way to Fort Collins.
Once I arrived at the downtown bus station in Fort Collins I spent another $1.25 and caught the Max bus going south towards the temple. Twenty minutes later I got off the bus. At that point it got tricky: I was still a couple of miles away from the temple and not a taxi in town was coming by the street I was on. Unfortunately my Uber app was not working on my phone.
I walked over to a rental car place to see if they could run me up to the temple for a fee. No luck.
I went next door to a furniture store and got the same result.
Then I saw an older gentleman pulling into the parking lot driving a mini-Cooper. I motioned for him to roll down his window and asked if he had time to drive me a couple of miles to the Mormon temple. He said he didn’t, but his “buddy Mike”, who is the manager of the carpet store that he works for, was a Mormon and was from Utah. He said he thought he could help me out. I waited for about 10 minutes and sure enough Mike pulled up. He helped me out in a jiffy!
I arrived too late to do an endowment session given the time that I had, so I went straight into the initiatory and 
it worked great. That’s where I met Skip Holland, a wonderful temple worker who seemed like he was in charge. After doing some initiatory work, Skip offered to drive me back to the bus station. (He initially offered to drive me back to the Denver Airport but I didn’t want to put him out and I wanted to get some lunch at a favorite place in Fort Collins anyway.)
These temple workers are amazing people. Of the now 15 temples I’ve visited this year, this is the first time I posed for a picture out in front of the temple with one of the temple workers. Skip represents the best of these workers: unselfish, kind, considerate, and very helpful. It also turns out he went to Granite High School in Salt Lake City, which is where my mother graduated from.
There is a wonderful restaurant in Fort Collins call BeauJos. They’re known for their deep dish mountain pizza. The Max bus dropped me off only a block from the restaurant so I snagged a Hawaiian pizza with a salad bar and some root beer.
I’m relaxing in the middle of town right now writing this. It’s a cool, quiet, calm, peaceful day. Mike moved here six years ago from Utah and says Fort Collins reminds him of Park City.
The temple is beautiful with some gorgeous stained glass. The carpet in the initiatory area is a beautiful and soft avocado green. They let me spend some time in the celestial room. I was there by myself. There is a small, bright red pane of stained glass on the wall that prompted me to make that reddish color my frame for this photo. My solo time in the celestial room was really nice!
After lunch I caught the final bus back to Union Station, grabbed the train back to the airport, and flew back to Washington. I loved every minute of the travel experience!
Nine more temples to go for this year and I have three months to do it. I’m optimistic!