New Mexico Trip - Going Home
Los Alamos, Mew Mexico to Golden, Colorado: May 9, 2015


Due to the weather forecast, we decided to leave on Saturday instead of Sunday. We all went for a very tasty breakfast in Santa Fe.
Jane was in the car, and when she saw us, she got this frustrated look like "They're here? Nobody told me to bring the tennis ball!"
From left to right: Mike, Josh, Oliver, Sylvia, and Des.
Michael Sanders, Josh White, Oliver White, Sylvia White, Des White
 
A better picture of Sylvia!
Sylvia White

On the road again:


 
These clouds don't look nearly as threatening in the pictures as they did while we were driving toward them.





 
I tried to find ways to capture the threat level of the clouds:

 

MOVIE!

Threatening clouds over the Colorado border. AVI file, 2.3 Mb

 








 
Headed over Raton pass and into Colorado. So far, so good.










We stopped in Colorado City for the rest stop and to refill the gas tank. We could see signs that a hail storm had been there, and Mike heard in the gas station that
it was one of a few that had come through in the last few days. We switched drivers. (Mike had driven a lot while I was busy taking pictures in New Mexico. Also, I usually do
the driving in heavy traffic situations... that's an age-old paradigm for us.)
Fortunately, we were 20-30 minutes behind some pretty powerful hail storms. My parents had been
tracking it while we were driving, and they had seen alerts that read like "100% chance of quarter-sized hail, there will be damage."
Hail on the side of the road as we approach Colorado Springs:

 
Here, you can see that the storm just ahead of us left so much hail on the highway in downtown Colorado Springs that they needed snow plows to clear it.


 
Got through the worst of it. (and all the traffic that went with all the ice on the road). You can still see hail on the side of the road.

 
After seeing all that hail, we were almost relieved to hit a snow storm in Monument Pass:


 
Lots of heavy rain but nothing more after Monument. We got home about 6 pm - the cats were happy to see us, and we were happy to see them!

It snowed after we got home - more pictures here: Snow, Cats, and a Baby Bunny. Golden, Colorado: May 9-10, 2015.

Return to the 2015 New Mexico Overview Page

Last updated 17May2015