One day last summer I went for a late-afternoon drive with my parents into Rocky Mountain National Park. From the safety of the rental car, we drove into a hailstorm, then into a parking lot to wait out the hailstorm–which stopped, so my dad pulled back onto the road, and it immediately started again, and finally we found another safe spot to pull off while the ice balls plonked on the car and bounced off the pavement.
A little farther along, we stopped at this curve and watched as the storm made its way across the resort town of Estes Park. It was a tiny storm but its route happened to coincide exactly with ours, as we traveled in opposite directions.
I don’t have anything profound to say about it. It was just a productive little storm cloud on a beautiful July afternoon. I was glad I was inside something with a hard roof instead of outside on a trail. And isn’t it a pretty picture?
Photo: Helen Fields (me)
In fall 2018, for our 30th anniversary, my wife & I took a driving tour of some national parks and went to RMNP for the first time. What an amazing place! The aspens were turning, the elk were in rut, and kids everywhere were back in school so it wasn’t packed to the gills. Now our daughter has moved within short drive distance so I suspect we’ll be back. The air may be a bit thin up there, but the view is hardly to be believed.