When the weather gets rough, we stay smart!

We just beat the snow out of Telluride, in fact there was a lot of it on the mountain pass we had to go over to get down the mountain.

The weather predicted that all the mountain ranges in southern Colorado were going to get hit with this snow, SO we kept going until we got to New Mexico.  We had already planned to stay at a state park in the area where my grandfather was christened (and most likely born).   It was almost completely empty and we were totally off grid - it was so peaceful!

The next morning we headed toward the Santa Fe area and another campground we had picked out, but first we made a quick stop into the Clerk of Courts for Rio Arriba County.  We searched through the deeds and marriage records and found some interesting possibilities but nothing that said definitely that my great grandparents owned land here.  The nice admin pointed us in the direction of the Santa Fe Vital Statistics Office to look up my grandfather's birth certificate (I did this a few days later and found out his birth was not recorded with the state - bummer)

IT was very cool though to think that my great grandparents lived and raised their family in this area.

We found our next camp site and stopped in to talk to the park ranger - who told us snow was expected overnight.  So we ran to REI to see what we needed to "weather the storm" - long johns were a must for both of us and I needed another pair of pants.  

Thank goodness for birthday gift cards!!!!

Make note of the elevation here.

We got back to the site and it immediately started to snow.  Wait!  This wasn't supposed to start until overnight?!?!  We decided to make dinner, start a fire with what firewood Todd had collected before we left, and see what the weather was going to do while we ate.

Well.... within the time it took us to make dinner (less than 2 hours) the snow had only come down more heavily and there was about 3 inches already on the car and in our campsite.  We decided it wasn't smart to stay especially since we did not have the right clothes/shoes or equipment for snow, the fire was burning fast and the fallen wood around the area was now all wet. 

 We took one last selfie, packed our dinner to go and high tailed it off that mountain. We found a warm place to lay our heads in a quaint, kitchy retro hotel in town.  

We'll decide what to do next tomorrow... after all tomorrow is another day.