-13° In a Coleman Sleeping Bag

Now that we are heading back towards home we only have one stop planned: the ultra-liberal Boulder, CO. As soon as the day turned to night on our drive through Colorado the snow began to fall. The roads were steep ad treacherous as the roads passed over the summits of mountains up to 10,000 feet above sea level and 18 wheelers pulled over to honor tire chain laws. DJs on the radio were reporting temperatures in the single digits for the evening. I stopped for gas and came out of the gas station to find Mike in the driver’s seat… what a relief! We spent a good amount of time on the highway still and eventually had to take a less maintained road north towards Boulder. This road was barely plowed, hilly, and winding. We took it super slow and things were fine until we hit ice on a sharp right bend. Mike stayed calm, but couldn’t keep the van straight. We spun, Mike corrected, we slid into a guardrail, Mike corrected, we slid off the road, Mike corrected.

The damage isn't bad, thank God!

We were in the middle of nowhere in a bitter cold snowstorm in Colorado. We had to keep driving. Luckily we had no more incidents, but as soon as we saw a town we decided to get off the road 30 miles from Boulder before our luck ran out. There is so much more at stake when your vehicle is your home and you have no other way to cover the 2,000+ miles home. We parked outside of a Best Western, bundled up, and went to bed. We cuddled all night for warmth and kept our heads under our bedding, but it wasn’t enough. We were COLD!! We stayed huddled in our literally frozen bed until the coffee shop across the street opened at 7am. In the coffee shop a pot belly stove was roaring and the shop was super toasty. While warming up by the stove we heard the girl at the counter tell another customer that it was -13° when she got to work that morning. -13°!!!!! That means it was even colder than that at the coldest time of the night. We had a good laugh over sleeping OUTSIDE of a hotel in -13° weather and decided we would stay IN a hotel that night.

We drove the rest of the way to Boulder that morning, did some shopping, and spent a couple hours at a local climbing gym called The Spot. We decided we really liked Boulder and would like to go back during positive temperatures to enjoy the vibe and the mountains there.