Day 14: (3of3) Saturday May 16th, Driving to Mesa Verde National Park

After we left the Great Sand Dunes, We traveled back across most of Colorado heading towards Mesa Verde. This time south and then West. Another long drive and beautiful scenery. 

This one included a summit crossing at dusk, 

The frosty trees should have been an early warning of what was to come! 

with falling temperatures, rain that turned to snow,

  snow that turned to unplowed slippery roads, that turned to an unplanned u-turn, otherwise known as a 180. Not a sole on the road though, so Yay, no harm no foul. 

Our 180 was a slow motion event that was a gentle sliding affair. The truck and trailer gently slid as a unit, together. I was turning the wheel into the slide, keeping everything straight, but we were still going both sideways and downhill until eventually it had gone 180 degrees and we were in the snow bank on the side of the road facing the wrong way! 

And then the ever helpful GPS Nav system says "Make a U-Turn" hahaha. Okay, we'll get right on that. 

We were able to just make a wide u-turn and continue on our way. As I mentioned, no one on the road in either direction so that part was easy peasy.  The rest of the drive down ( I traded with Daryl as I was shaking like a leaf) was a white knuckle affair with Daryl Driving barely 15 mph  until we came down past the snow line and into warm rain. Whew that was a bit intense. Once we were past the snow line everything opened up beautifully. Such gorgeous scenery. 

We arrived after hours at our camp site in Mesa Verde so the check in place was closed, but they had a packet taped on the window for us, listing our camp site with a map. Backing into a camp site in the pitch dark in 29 degrees is a bit tricky. Then after about three tries, and finally getting everything set up and the leveling blocks in place and everything unlocked, locked, winched, and situated. We closed the door of our trailer, declared victory, and realized that because our leveler is on the tongue of the trailer hitch (the part that got tweaked in the 180 unplanned u-turn) We had put leveling blocks under the tire when it really didn't need any, so the trailer had a high side. We both look at each other laughed and said, "we sleep with our heads on the high side" and went to bed!