On Thursday, April 3rd, we woke up early, which is customary for our travel days. We had a decent breakfast at the hotel and headed north out of Sante Fe shortly after 8am. It was cold again this morning and there was a chance for rain and snow on our route. The forecast called for little accumulation, so we didn't sweat it. Northern New Mexico was pretty with the Rockies to our east and west. It was quite a contrast from southern NM.
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| It really was very cold!! |
The first part of our trip went smoothly, with clear conditions and light traffic. We charged as planned in Alamosa while we ate the local BBQ joint which was pretty good but overpriced for the quantity. We hit the road again headed north to the Great Sand Dunes National Park. Soon we crossed into Colorado.
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| I can't help but think that this welcome sign was throwing some shade on New Mexico - we found that what we saw of NM was pretty monochromatic. |
On our way, we drove by Blanca Peak, measuring 14,345 feet, making this one of Colorado's many "14ers". Unfortunately, the top was obscured by clouds.
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| Blanca Peak |
Soon we reached Great Sand Dunes National Park. The cold conditions made attendance there very light. They had a small visitors center and we enjoyed the video about the nature of sand dunes in the middle of the Rockies. Leon made a quick jaunt into the dunes, but I stayed in the car because it was just too cold!
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| It was cold and quite breezy - we jumped out and back into the car quickly to snap this picture. |
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| There was a nice terrace outside the visitors center that gave a great view of the sand dunes. Again, quick in and out to get this picture. |
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| Leon took his selfie. We agreed that we would really like to visit this national park in warmer weather. It has a lot to offer beyond the sand dunes. |
We drove north around 1:00 and headed into higher altitude. Along the way, we saw four elk herds sitting out in cow pastures - the herds looked to be between 30 and 60 each. Leon spotted few prairie dogs in this stretch - his eyes are keen.
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| The views along the way were breathtaking - and we started to see more signs of snow. |
Our next charging stop was in Fairplay, CO, standing at just under 10,000 ft. There was about 4" of fresh snow on the ground. We continued north on Hwy 285 and the minor, occasional snow we'd seen so far quickly turned into a blizzard.
Heavy, driving snow in 25 degree weather made the roads treacherous within just a few miles of Fairplay. We considered our options but since we were in the middle of nowhere, we decided to go slow and continue on. Highway 285 varied between a 4-lane divided highway and 2 lane road in the most mountainous areas. In a heavy rear wheel drive car, keeping the car in control at 20-35 mph was difficult to say the least. Many times, Leon lost control of the car (at least 6 times). He did a great job of keeping his cool and quickly regained control, managing to avoid veering off the road or into oncoming traffic. However, others weren't so lucky. We passed one bad accident which was a head-on collision including 5 cars, as well as 2-3 other minor accidents. Emergency vehicles were not present as the road accidents were recent, telling us the road conditions worsened quickly. Snow plows were out but there weren't enough to clear the roads.
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| I managed to take this picture while we were white-knuckle driving. It was very scary for at least 3 hours of driving. |
Before we finally came down to the lower elevations we drove about 65 miles in the blizzard, probably taking close to three hours. It was easily the scariest drive of our lives!
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| Driving got better when we were fortunate enough to get behind 2 snowplows clearing the roads in tandem in front of us. Even with that, the roads were still quite slippery. |
The roads were much better the closer we got to Denver, and to lower elevations. We finally made it to Louisville to Avi Rocklin's house, picking up Chinese takeout on the way. I can't tell you how happy we were to be out of the car! We did some catching up with them and then headed to bed a bit early. We needed some extra rest.
The next morning, we saw Avi and David off as they were headed to Vegas for the weekend. We made a quick trip to the store for a few things, washed the car, and headed back to the house for a quiet day.
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