When planning a vacation, we try to visit places when everyone's kids are still in school. Typically we shoot for May/June and September/October. The crowds are thinned out, the weather is usually not too hot or cold, and many of the seasonal businesses are either just opening up for the summer or not yet closed for the winter. This works the majority of time, but, once in a while, mother nature has a surprise for you.
This was the case when we visited Colorado a few years ago in June. We had spent some time in the western part of the state and the weather was wonderful. The last of the trip was going to be in Rocky Mountain National Park before we headed home. We stayed overnight in Vail and found out that there was going to be some snow the next day. We had planned to drive up the west side of the Rockies, over them, and head to Denver. We found out that the road over the Rockies was closed due to the weather. Undeterred, we drove up the east side as far as we could go. Along the way, we stopped to shoot some images that showed the the snow over the valley.