Summertime Road Trips

We don’t have time for any extended trips at the moment, so we have been taking shorter, weekend trips for the time being. It is a great time of year to hop in a car and find places near you that you have never visited before or perhaps haven’t gone to in a long time. Since travel is often more expensive during the summer months when many families are taking vacations, driving to local destinations is also a nice way to keep costs down. The downside, of course, is often spending hours upon hours stuck in the seat of a vehicle.

Colorful Scenery
Different Geology
On the Road Again

We never used to take photos from the car when would travel to places, but now we often do, just like we now take photos from the window of a plane when flying to a different country. Taking photos through the windows of a moving vehicle doesn’t always produce the greatest results, but capturing the changing scenery is actually a nice reminder of how beautiful some of the places are that you travel through on your way to your final destination.

Plateaus in the Distance
Winding Through the Mountains
Storm on the Horizon

Another drawback to traveling during the summer can sometimes be the weather. First of all, it can be quite hot, which likely means that the windows are rolled up and the air conditioning is on instead of enjoying the fresh scents of nature. Another issue can be rain or, even worse, hail. Driving through torrential rain storms with water standing on the highway can be as much of a white-knuckle drive as driving through a snow storm in the winter. We certainly ran into a little bit of everything during our drive from Colorado to Santa Fe, New Mexico, this past weekend.

Very Menacing Clouds
Heading Towards the Storm
Nowhere to Hide

 

The Calm Before the Storm

It is true that the day before a storm arrives, the weather is usually deceptively beautiful. Here in Colorado, we usually call it “the warm before the storm”, but the idea is still the same. This was definitely true this weekend as we took these pictures the night before we got another foot of snow. That is right, the last weekend of April and we have a foot of snow in our backyard.  These pictures are from the night before the storm.  The clouds were already gathering, but that made for a beautiful sunset.

Perhaps it is a metaphor for the excitement before our trip to South America.  We leave tomorrow to start our trip and we’re in the process of taking care of the final items on our preparation list.   This is actually one of the longer trips that we’ve taken, so there has been quite a bit to take care of before we leave.  Today we are relaxed and excited for the adventures ahead of us, but tomorrow will probably start the butterflies in our stomach as the anticipation builds.  We’ll post a few pictures from the trip as we can, but we might be out of touch from time to time.

Best wishes to everyone and we’ll share the stories of our trip as soon as we return.