After what seemed like a week of traveling, and feeling as though we should’ve been in Canada, we finally made it to Steamboat Springs, Colorado. All in all, it wasn’t a bad trip, but it was eventful. Within two hours, while in Colorado, we experienced sunshine and hot temperatures; rain; hail; tornadoes; and snow. I had to check the map twice to make sure we were in Colorado and not Oz. It was amazing.
We decided to stop for lunch in Denver and ended up at the Texas Roadhouse in Aurora. The food was good, our waitress was from Massachusetts, and the weather, unbeknownst to us, was changing outside. It had just starting raining as we left the restaurant, and the wind had picked up.
After getting in the van, and continuing our trek through Denver, the rain started coming down in drops the size of water balloons it seemed. And then, it hailed. I’m not talking pea-size hail . . . golf ball sized hail. It literally sounded like the hail was going to come through the roof of the van. The hail was coming down so much that we, along with ever car in front of us on I-225, stopped for cover under an overpass. It looked like a parking lot on the freeway. No one was observing the lanes; I thought I was in Zambia again.
I saw a break in the clouds toward the direction we were traveling, and after weaving my way through the logjam on the freeway, drove as quickly (and almost legally) as I could away from the storm. Kristen, who was sitting directly behind me yelled, “Oh my gosh, there’s a tornado!” And sure enough, in the area where we had just eaten lunch, we could see a well-defined tornado coming down out of the clouds and moving quickly towards the ground. We found out later on the news that there had been 5 tornadoes, one of which had hit in the area where we had eaten lunch. So . . . that was the hail and tornado part of the trip.
Same day, just about an hour or so later, it snowed on us as we made our way over Berthoud Pass (elevation about 9,000 ft.). We stopped and took photos along the way of a raging creek of runoff snow coming down from the mountains, and took in the scenery. How anyone can believe there is no God is beyond belief to me.
More to come as we vacation.