Against all odds, the skies cleared after we pitched the tent…

When we left Denver this afternoon, it was bright and summery; mostly sunny and hot. It didn’t take long for clouds to set in though, By the time we made it to Larkspur, Pike’s Peak was already hidden behind a wall of hazy gray.

The rain held off until south of Pueblo. We could see it miles before we got to it. Lightning strikes popped with increasing intensity as we got closer. Off to the west, where cloud cover was thinner, the rain was backlit and falling in distinct columns. In front of us there was an indistinct gray wall and a line of cars with headlamps on.

It’s been an unusually wet year for Colorado, starting with the snowfall over the winter. For the first time, we saw a snowstorm that lasted a whole day. Rainstorms though, those tend to be quick affairs. They come almost out of nothing from clouds formed above the Front Range that sweep out over the Denver basin and are gone in an hour, leaving everything wet for a moment and the evening blessedly cooler.

This was easily the biggest rainstorm I’ve seen in Colorado, though nowhere near the most severe. We drove though it, from back to front, and it took us almost an hour. The rain was consistently heavy except on the periphery, and road conditions were crap. The roads out here aren’t graded for good drainage, because there’s almost never anything to drain.

We finally broke throough, just before Raton Pass. The sky brightened, but didn’t clear. As we climbed toward the pass and got some distance from the storm, we could see it behind us, even darker from this side and still studded with flashes of lightning. It wasn’t a severe thunderstorm, but a very large one, and it was bearing down on the area where we intended to camp for the night. Things seemed chancy.

We crested the pass – which, conveniently, is on the state line – and began descending into New Mexico. Around a corner the view opened up, and it was staggering. The land below was gold-green from vegetation and the late afternoon sun, throwing the scattered ancient cinder cones into stark relief. The sky ahead was a cloudy blue.

We left the interstate and headed east. By the time we got to Sugarite Canyon, only five miles distant, the clouds were over us again. We pitched camp hurriedly.

As we got the fly on the tent and wondered what to do next, raindrops began to fall, making the decision for us. Bed without dinner for us. The food had to stay in the car; there are black bear and mountain lions here. We climbed into the tent and read for a while. Rain drizzled on the tent fly.

After a while, Missy noticed that it wasn’t raining anymore. She looked outside and discovered a clear sky full of stars. I followed her and we looked around.

Against all odds, the skies cleared after we pitched the tent. Somehow, the giant storm had not hit us and the low clouds from an hour before were gone. To the south, east, and west, the night was clear, and impossibly full of twinkling stars. A little east of straight up, faint but visible, ran the Milky Way. I can’t remember the last time I saw it so well.

We watched the stars. We pointed out airliners. We saw two meteors. I talked of old friends.

More clouds hung to the north, slowly encroaching. At first we had to turn around to see them. When rain started falling again, we could see them above us even when facing straight south, their presence made clear by the lack of brilliant stars.