(The First?) Mesa Verde National Park Wedding + My First Time in Colorado

Last winter (pre-pandemic), a friend of mine from the fourth grade asked me to photograph her wedding in Mesa Verde National Park. Her and her fiancé had met there and wanted to get married there as well, which I thought was awesome. I immediately agree and we started planning this trip. I decided to bring my husband along for the trip and make it a little vacation as well! I booked the week before the first case of corona virus in Indiana. Slowly after booking, things changed drastically and we worried if they would be able to have their wedding as planned. She had just wanted family and close friends, but it did involve a lot of traveling for those invited, so it was just totally unpredictable. Thankfully, things worked out and myself, as well as most other guests were able to come and witness their beautiful rainy wedding. We were told that it might have possibly been the first wedding in Mesa Verde National Park. When doing research we didn’t see any other weddings online in the park. But that didn’t stop us from taking the rain and pandemic circumstances by storm and making it happen. I am so happy Kelynn and Levi were able to have their special day, maybe not exactly how they had imagined, but just as amazing, none the less.

Anyways, I wanted to share some photos and what we did during our pandemic trip. It was my first time out west and my first time going to a national park. It was also my first destination wedding, after shooting weddings for five years, it was amazing to get out of Indiana and see what else the world has to offer.

Day 1

We flew in a few days before the wedding, left from Indy, had a short layover in DFW and then onto Durango. We decided to stay close to the park in Cortez for the first part of the trip. Actually, I can’t really say we decided because I had a ton of help planning from the best travel agent, Brenda Palmer (seriously contact her if you suck at traveling like I do!). That night we were a little tired from flying but we decided to grab dinner and then go watch the sunset. We got food at Burger Boy Drive In (in town). It was so good and I totally forgot to take pictures because we were so hungry. We took it to the local park and enjoyed dog watching while eating. After that we decided to go for a drive and ran into a great place to watch the sunset. Here’s some photos from Day 1.

Day 2

We decided to go back to the same place we had found the evening before & do some hiking. The altitude was a little hard to get used to at first, but it was a beautiful day. We hiked four miles through the most beautiful mountain trails at Sand Canyon Monument of the Ancients. It seemed like there was a different amazing view around every corner. As you could guess, I took lots of photos this day!

We really enjoyed finding this ancient cave dwelling, well, the remnants at least! It’s crazy imagining people living here in the past!

Of course we had Mexican for dinner. I had Arroz con Pollo - which was alright but definitely not my favorite meal we had on our trip.

A gorgeous scenic overlook just north of Cortez.

That evening we took another drive to a beautiful overlook and ended the night chasing a doe through the field (my husband LOVES deer haha!)

Day 3

My husband suggested we make a trip up to Telluride + of course I agreed. We drove up and first thing I noticed after arriving was people wearing coats and pants. I was shocked because its the end of July and I was wearing shorts. I hadn’t checked the forecast but it being the mountain town it was, it was a chilly 55 degree day. It was fun to explore and everyone was very good at social distancing, sanitizing and wearing masks as asked.

I even took pictures on the drive there and the drive back to our hotel!

The clouds on the mountains that day were AMAZING.

We tried to drive and see Four Corners, but sadly it was closed due to COVID. Still got some cool pictures of the desert drive towards that area.

Day 4 - WEDDING DAY

I will do full blog post on this at a later time, but here’s some amazing pictures of Kelynn + Levi making the most of the pouring rain on their wedding day.

Everyone, including myself and my camera, was soaked.

Day 5

We checked out of our hotel in Cortez and began our drive to Durango. We were super excited to stay at The (Haunted) Strater Hotel but we couldn’t check in until later so we decided to take the dry weather and go hiking. I picked a trail up to Lake Eileen, little did I know it would be the hardest hike of my life.

It was a workout, but the views didn’t disappoint.

We finished our hike right before the rain hit for the day, then we went to Durango, checked into The Strater, and had some local street tacos at Switchback in town.. I totally forgot to take a picture but their queso was to-die-for and their tacos were so authentic.

Once the rain let up a bit we walked down the street for some ice cream at Cream Bean Berry, which was the best and lightest ice cream I have ever tasted.

Day 6

This day was all about shopping, with masks on and lots of hand sanitizer. Everyone in Durango was amazing at keeping things clean, wearing masks everywhere, and social distancing. We got to help support some local shops and see the typical tourist tee shirt shops.

For lunch we had Durango Bagel, which was AMAZING. The chicken salad on a salt bagel was soooo tasty.

For dinner we had Fired Up Pizza, Colin had pizza and I had the chicken pesto sandwich, which was definitely a 10/10.

After dinner we reserved the hotel’s jacuzzi room. It was super neat, but also super hot.

Day 7

We had some time to kill before we flew back home so we decided to drive south to New Mexico and see the Aztec National Monument. It was amazing to see how people lived so long ago.