Considering that we lived in Florida for 15 years before traveling, playing in the snow on Memorial Day was quite a novelty for us. We spent the day at Grand Mesa National Forest which was absolutely beautiful. We didn’t exactly dress appropriately for snow; we thought we would be hiking in the forest. However, most of the hiking trails were covered in snow, and even several of the roads were still closed and covered in snow. So we just enjoyed a most unusual (for us) Memorial Day playing in the snow.
On the way up to Grand Mesa we saw this interesting sight of cows in the road. They didn’t seem to care that they were holding up traffic. 🙂
We had planned to go to a picnic area for lunch, but this is as far as we went in our truck up the road and then decided to turn around and find someplace else to eat. That’s Jesse running up the hill.
We ended up at the parking lot at this lake and had a tailgate picnic. It was quite chilly for us Floridians in shorts!
Then we walked down a short trail that brought us to a campground that was mostly under snow. The boys loved throwing snowballs until their hands got too cold!
After that we hiked around some lakes as far as we could go. The combination of snow and lakes was so beautiful!
After walking around the lakes for awhile we continued on the scenic byway through Grand Mesa and saw even more snow and some icy lakes.
When we got to the Visitor Center it looked like they had just plowed the parking lot. The Visitor Center actually just opened that day for the season.
If we are ever back in this area in the summertime we’ll have to make a return visit to try some of the trails. But we were certainly not disappointed to find all this snow. It was a really fun day and the boys loved playing in it and throwing snowballs. And considering it was quite hot down in Fruita where we were staying, this was a refreshing change.
4 Radical Roadschoolers and a Fat Cat 