1. Plymouth, MN
2. Fort Collins, CO
3. Naperville, IL
4. Irvine, CA
5. Franklin Township, NJ
6. Norman, OK
7. Round Rock, TX
8. Columbia/Ellicott City, MD
9. Overland Park, KS
10. Fishers, IN

Other Colorado cities to make the list: Highlands Ranch (#12), Loveland (#33), Westminster (#44), Longmont (#50).

from the Coloradoan:

Fort Collins named one of top offbeat spots in country

BY TIM KEITH

Fort Collins was named one of the top five offbeat cities to visit in 2008 by OffbeatTravel.com.

Among the city's best attractions are its five breweries, especially New Belgium Brewing Co., said Neala Schwartzberg, publisher of the site.

"Their beer is unlike any other I've ever tasted," Schwartzberg said of the brewery.

The Swetsville Zoo, just east of the Harmony Road-Interstate 25 intersection, is a sculpture park made completely of scrap metal. It is another good attraction, she said.

The combination of folk art and the breweries makes Fort Collins a unique place to visit in Colorado, said Cathy Jones, tourism marketing manager for the Fort Collins Convention & Visitors Bureau.

"It is a great designation for us," Jones said. "We are not your typical thought for a vacation in Colorado, but we are a great place to visit."

Fort Collins is joined on the list by Dahlonega, Ga.; Hanalei, Hawaii (on Kauai); Moline, Ill.; and Taos, N.M. The cities were picked by Schwartzberg as places that stuck out in her travels since 2000.

"Some of them have really stayed with me, and I think people should know about them," she said.

This is the first time the site has released this list, Schwartzberg said, but she plans to make it an annual event.

Fort Collins made the list for its natural beauty as well as its other attractions. "I think it's just a really charming 'small-town' city that people would enjoy," she said.

Jim's pictures of Colorado (and particularly of Fort Collins) inspired me last Saturday to snap a few photos of my own of our fair city.  We had gotten about an inch of snow on Friday and a light dusting over the night.  Usually the snow doesn't stay on the trees, but the first round of snow was so heavy and wet that it clung to the branches, making for spectacular winter scenes.

I was on my way to the Alley Cat Cafe, when I decided to spin by CSU for a few photos.  ("Spin" refers to the fact that I was on my bike.  I don't usually bike in the snow, but it wasn't very deep and it was quite crunchy, so I didn't slide at all.  It was crunchy because of the temperature.  I'm getting to that....)  I figured that The Oval would be beautiful with all the snow on the trees so I headed that way and wasn't disappointed.

I parked my bike and took a few photos, which I had to do with gloves off.  I'm surprised my camera even worked out in that weather.  When I pedaled past the Key Bank building (which has a time and temperature display), it was 16 degrees F.  (That's -9 C.)  My fingers could barely take it, so I didn't hang out long. 

The Oval, despite the similarity of having a geometric name and shape, is nothing like The Diag that I'm used to from my college days.  At the University of Michigan, the Diag (where two diagonal walkways cross in front of the Grad. Library) is in the center of campus and is a popular place to hang out, sunbathe, toss a frisbee, protest, preach and generally immerse oneself in the essence and aroma of university life. The Oval, on the other hand, is somewhat off to one side of campus.  I suspect it might have been central long ago, but now the CSU equivalent of U of M's Diag is located around the libary and Lory Student Center.  The Oval still has its events (I attended a dog show there once.), and it has its share of sunbathers and frisbee throwers (obviously not now, but as recently as a week ago we had some lovely 70 degree days), but it tends to be a quieter, more introspective sort of place to hang out.  (And the oval shaped road that circumscribes the grassy island makes a fun place to bike around with the kids, ...or for me when I just want to think without having to think about where I'm going.)


By the time I made it to the Alley Cat (which is only about 1/2 a block north of here) I was frozen to the bone.  But two steaming hot mugs of Alley Cat Chai brought me back to my senses. 

Since Saturday we've gotten several more inches of snow.  The trees are still snow covered and the, now fluffy, snow is about 6 inches deep (with a nice crunchy layer of icy snow underneath).

I wouldn't bike in it at this point.  (With this much powder, it's hard to tell where the icy patches are.)   So we walked to school this morning, enjoying the gently falling snow.

Fast Company has listed Fort Collins as the #1 R&D hotspot for 2007. Here's what they have to say:

FORT COLLINS, Colorado

Population > 276,000

Leading indicator >Leading indicator > Generating patents at the rate of 11.45 a year per 10,000 people, nearly four times the U.S. city average

Fast companies > LSI; Advanced Energy Industries

A big college town means two things: research and beer. Colorado State University spins out world-class work in realms from bacterial diseases to sustainable energy, feeding a patent stream that's growing by 21% a year. And Fort Collins's six breweries spin out … brew. Synergy alert: New Belgium Brewery has pioneered efficiencies for carbon emissions and water use.

While we were in Michigan, a bear had come into the city and had to be removed. Two days ago, another bear toddled in. He climbed up into a tree by the Avery House (a historical house downtown) and didn't come down again till last night.

I've heard this was a young guy, about 2 years old, who was previously untagged. They had to tranquilize him and pull him down out of the tree at 3:30 this morning, which means that he was tagged. (I think if he had come down of his own accord and entered the trap they wouldn't have tagged him. At least, that's what I've heard through the rumor mill.) Two tags can mean the end of the road for our little bear cub.

The bears are having an especially hard year, not only because of the drought (what's new, eh?) but because a late frost hurt the berry crop in the mountains.

The bear apparently started to come down several times during the night, but was repeatedly scared back up into the tree by passing onlookers. We stopped by the Avery house and checked him out Friday night after hanging out at Coopersmiths. The footage is rather shaky, but at least you can see the bear. :-)

I'm not a huge café kinda person.  When Rob and I first started dating, he'd take me to several of the funky cafés of San Francisco, and I had to admit that they were cool. (You actually felt cool when you were sitting in them.  It was like your coolness meter would jump up the moment you stepped over the threshold.) So when I'd go back home to Detroit, I'd try visiting a café here or there, just so Rob would think I was cool like him, but I found that it just wasn't me.  I was happier staying at home with my Gevalia coffee (I can't believe I drank that stuff.) and my cozy floral couch. At heart, I'm a stay-at-home kinda gal.

But that started to change after I had kids. I'd been in San Francisco for two years by that point and had been fully indoctrinated into the lifestyle of the café.  I would still rather just sit at home with my homemade latté (now made with beans from Café Mam -- organic, fair trade, and it actually tasted good), but, being married to Rob, the café geek, I had to get used to cafés if I wanted to spend chunks of time with the hubbie. (Some gals have to learn to love football or golf.  I just had to get used to a café lifestyle.  On the whole, not a bad deal.)  And once I had kids, I came to realize that the café can become a place of escape.  So every Saturday morning, as a bit of a gift to me, Rob would watch our son while I went out to the Atlas Café (just around the corner from our house.  We jokingly called it our second living room.)  When we had the twins, my café time became not just a treat, but a lifesaver.  (In the beginning, I'd have to take a baby with me while Rob watched the other two, which was about all he could handle. Still, one was better than three. --  Any time I had a rough day with the kids, Rob would jokingly say, "Now you know what I go through for 2 hours every Saturday.")

Despite the fact that the kids are now much older, Rob has continued to treat me to my "Meggie Time" every Saturday.  After trying several local Fort Collins cafés, none of which seemed to "fit" me very well, I happened across the Alley Cat Café.  Someone had been handing out fliers on campus (at CSU, where Rob was working on his masters degree), and after Rob visited he mentioned that I might like the place.  He was right.  I rarely have gone to any other Fort Collins café since discovering the Alley Cat.

Whereas many cafés glean their aura of "cool" from their Parisian sensibility (small tables with straight backed chairs, artsy baristas and bits of local artwork adorning the otherwise bare walls), the Alley Cat's "cool" comes directly from the well-spring of funkitudiny that emanates from it's own customers.  From the community chalk board that anyone's welcome to scribble on (our twins love adding pictures of kitties to it), to the customer generated ceiling panel artwork, you feel like you've walked into a café that you can invest in as a place of your own. There are toys for the kids (who are actually welcomed, unlike in many San Francisco cafés where you'll feel like people are looking daggers at you for bringing your monsters into the establishment), there's a piano and two guitars that customers are welcomed to play, there's several bookshelves full of books and games and there are notebooks that anyone can scribble thoughts in.  There are plants growing in just about every nook and cranny, adding to the warmth of the place.  And if you want to go for the Parisian feel, there are small tables with straight backed chairs you can sit at next to bits of local art on the walls.  But there's also couches, booths, armchairs and a massive pillow that you can lounge around on if you'd rather. 

Ever since having the twins, coffee has made my stomach turn, so I've become more of a tea drinker.  The Alley Cat has the best tea selection I've found in any of the cafés in Fort Collins, and they make their own chai (which is delicious).  They recently switched to Novo coffee, which, according to Herb Brodsky (the customer relations guy at Novo and the father of the two founders, who I met a few weeks back while waiting in line for chai at the Alley Cat) has recently been picked up by some of the best cafés in the U.S. and Canada.  Each cup of coffee is freshly made when you order it, so you don't have to worry about getting stuck with a stale cup of coffee.  And, the icing on the cake for me is, if you order a drink "for here" you get it in a washable mug.  (I hate it when places insist on using paper whether you're staying or going, like the land-fill really needs the extra junk.)   The icing on the cake for the kids (besides the fact that there's a great guide to Pokemon among the café books) is that the baristas are almost always ridiculously generous with the whipped cream on top of their drinks.  That, and the kids also love the chai.

The Alley Cat is open 24 hours a day, has free internet (it kills me that people actually pay to use the internet at Starbucks.  Hello! McFly!), and is a comfortable place to hang out both with and without the kids in tow. I really like the Alley Cat. It's comfortable. In fact, it feels like home.

Edit:  I'm in the Alley Cat right now (16 Feb 08) and noticed that they've switched coffee again.  They're now using Jackie's Java, which is roasted right here in Fort Collins.