I used to live in Farmington, NM, Lakewood, and Gillette, WY, when I was in high school (stable, huh?).
Made the trip from Farmington to Denver many, many times. Still remember going over Wolf Creek, up through Leadville and Climax, then the nice little drive down I-70 through the tunnel and Idaho Springs.
And yeah, it's gonna be fun this year. We're forecast for snow upstate this weekend, next weekend at the latest. All we need is a few degrees cooler and we'll have some "down" here soon enough.
36 degrees this morning--it's not far off.