We had planned to stay in La Veta, Colorado for a minimum of three nights. We thought we might stay longer, but a change in the weather confirmed for us that it was time to head south for lower elevations. Our last day in Colorado had a high temperature of 87 degrees. But as you can see from the forecast below, they were expecting temperature to plummet well below freezing with 14 inches of snow in the next two days! It's time to hit the road!
Once again, the smoke from the wild fires around the country have caught up with us. As we pulled out of La Veta, Colorado, we can barely see the mountains beside the highway.
As we write this blog, we are collecting our thoughts on this summer. The first thought must be that we have been very lucky that we have never been close to the fires. They were either starting where we were two weeks before, or the fires were contained and out by the time we got there. We've seen a few smoky skies that seem to happen when it's time to move to a new location anyway. But we've been blessed to have a summer of mostly blue skies even though it seemed like the entire western half of the country was on fire.
Today we went up and over Raton Pass--the last mountain pass of our summer of travel. The picture below reminds us of two thoughts. First of all, Raton Pass was in the middle of a big construction project that limited us to a single lane with cement barricades on both sides at times. That isn't a fun driving situation for anything, and especially not for a motor home. Again, our summer was blessed with very little road construction. Colorado drivers were hampered with the closing of Interstate 70 for close to a month. I-70 is the main east/west artery across Colorado, and it closed just a few days after we drove that route. Again, we were blessed that the fires that led to highway closures didn't impact our travels this summer.
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The above picture of Raton Pass reminds us of a second thing. As we collect thoughts from this summer, we have to think about all the ups and down of the summer. That would be all the times we accelerated up mountain passes, and then braked down them. We are proud of our little diesel motor home engine that got us up those passes, and the engine brake that helped get us off those peaks safely. We think the decision to buy a diesel engine six years ago was a good one. According to our best estimate, in the car and/or motorhome we made it over 18 mountain passes this summer--Bobcat, Poncha, Cottonwood, Independence, Fremont, Loveland, Vail, McClure, Red Mountain, Dallas Divide, Lizard Head, Wolf Creek, Spring Creek, Slumgullion, North La Veta, Cuchara, Cordova, and Raton. We were blessed with safe travels during a summer filled with steep and tall mountain passes.
So as we passed the last mountain pass at Raton, we crossed the first state line we've seen in months. We were officially back in New Mexico . . . but only momentarily.
Since this state is requiring that all visitors quarantine for two weeks, that brings us to another thought. After spending the month of June in New Mexico, we left there for Colorado July 1. That's about the time that New Mexico started their more stringent quarantining regulations, making it very difficult for visitors. We appreciated the fact that Colorado welcomed us with open arms, and encouraged all citizens to get out and enjoy the great outdoors. We found that by early July all the Colorado campgrounds and trails were open, and we were blessed to get to use them.
After crossing that New Mexico state line, we never got out of the motor home until we crossed another state line into Oklahoma. So we obviously didn't have to do the 14-day quarantine that was required in New Mexico.
As we drove today, the temperatures got hotter and the wind ramped up. We watched the temperature raise to 99, and we had another thought as we remembered the cool summer that we have enjoyed in the mountains. During summer 2020 we wore jackets more than shorts. We got to hike in the snow as we enjoyed the refreshingly cool temperatures in the mountains.
Today, as the winds pummeled the side of our motor home, we also realized how little gusty wind we had this summer. This was the first time all summer that we experienced heavy winds on a moving day. We watched as the top soil from one field traded places with the soil across the road as we continued our drive across the Oklahoma panhandle.
We have been blessed to enjoy many days of calm winds this summer. We also realized that we only used bug spray once all summer, and we didn't find a single tick. Those are both major inconveniences for hikers! So we count our blessings for those days on glass-like lakes free of bugs!
As we rolled into our parking spot on the ranch where Mark was raised, our motor home wheels will be stopped for a month or so to visit with relatives. But as we collect our thoughts on the summer of 2020, we also count our blessings. We had planned to be touring the northeast corner of the United States and the Canadian Maritimes this summer. But spending our time in the mountains of New Mexico and Colorado has been a nice option for this Covid-limiting summer. In a summer when festivals were cancelled and museums were closed, it was nice that the mountains were still open! We were able to see beautiful sights and gets lots of exercise wandering God's wonders in the Summer of 2020. Our thoughts this summer have to be that we have been blessed once again to wander God's wonders!
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