May 22, 2013 - Chimney Rock NM & Great Sand Dune NP

May 22 8:00 just fueled up again $3.79 and are headed East. We have clear blue skies. We have started out at 7000’ but will be climbing today, we are in the heart of the Rockies. We have truly left the desert. The first hill topped out at 7900’, tall trees, evergreen and aspens green grass, small creeks, rushing mountain streams and rivers. 2nd hill is 8400’ then a 4 miles of 6% downgrade and bottomed out in Durango at 6500’, then 7800’, 7000’, 6900’, 7500’, 7100’, 10,892’, 8500’, this is not going to help the fuel mileage today. We still...

May 13, 2013 - Great Sand Dunes Natl Pk

We spent Friday and Saturday evening in a lovely commercial campground near Durango, Colorado: Lightner Creek. And we did find someone to look at the RV and he said it was the wrong tire pressure. That didn't really solve the problem (the clunking stopped, but we got a shimmy instead), so today we found another tire dealer in Alamosa, Colorado. He rotated and balanced the tires and that seemed to fix things. Whew! Yesterday we drove here to Great Sand Dunes National Park which is, like most national parks, beautiful. We didn't have time to...

Oct 19, 2012 - Mesa Verde, CO to Alamosa, CO

Day forty nine: Destination- Sand Dunes National Park Soundtrack- Jack Johnson, RHCP, Weezer, Adele, and Backstreet Boys We basically just drove around Colorado today, which is awesome. There is forest surrounding you almost all the time. We drove up to an overlook off the highway to have lunch. This is someones backyard. I'm a bit jealous. Then we drove through the mountains up to over 11, 700 feet! Pumbaa was not excited about it. The view from there was pretty insane though. Then we went to the Great Sand Dunes National Park. The sand...

Jun 4, 2012 - Day 29 Great Sand Dunes

please bear with me re out of order photos and videos, my voice sucks why i do not say where the video is made, i do TRY to keep them in an order with road signs to say about where a video is shot but this google new photo thing, the upload gets the videos out of order and it is now very hard to rearrange them back to proper order.... but if you only scan the photos you cannot tell whats what anyway... we know whats what so it doesnt matter to us... i just may stop the videos anyway, they are not that good anyway and the upload is very...

May 21, 2012 - Toute une journée

Randonnée au réveil pour le lever du soleil, un hiking d'environ 3 km avec le matériel photo, ça ouvre l'appétit. Le déjeuner était excellent. Nous allons faire le sentier hors-route Medano Pass Primitive Road en Jeep. Il recommande de dessoufler les pneus à 20 lbs pour avoir une meilleure portance dans le sable profond mais comme la pompe du camping est défectueuse nous devons y aller avec la pression normale. Ce sentier nous fait passer dans du sable profond où on est presque resté pris, traverser la rivière à 8 ou 9 reprises et nous fait...

May 20, 2012 - Il n'a pas fait chaud cette nuit

Je me lève avant la soleil pour photographier l'arrivée du soleil sur les montagnes et les dunes. Surprise, gelée au sol et neige dans les montagnes, on se conserve ce matin. Le paysage est splendide. Lorsque je photographiais, 2 chevreuils sont passés de chaque côté de moi comme si je n'existais pas. Après un bon déjeuner, nous allons faire du vélo jusqu'à l'entrée du parc. La route est vallonnée et peu achalandée. A 2500 mètres, on a un peu de misère à respirer. Un peu tu dis, Lucie fait pratiquement une crise d'hyperventilation et ça...

May 19, 2012 - Great Sand Dunes

Un réveil avec un soleil sur des pics de 4000 mètres qui nous entourent, nous continuons notre chemin vers Alamosa pour faire l'épicerie au Wal-Mart et Great Sand Dunes NP. En route nous passons par un beau petit village, Saguache, dont la rue principale est très colorée. Peu de côtes et de courbes sur ce plateau plutôt aride situé à 2200 mètres d'altitude. La ligne droite est le chemin le plus court et ils l'ont appliqué ici. Je pense qu'on a fait au moins 50 km sans avoir à tourner le volant. Pour y cultiver du foin ou des céréales, ça...

Jun 25, 2011 - Great Sand Dunes day 3

Drove to Zaptata Falls for an overview of the mountains and dunes, then to the town of Alamosa for lunch. Alamosa is full of antique stores - one of our favorites was a Garden Center and Antiques. The stores seem to be full of real antiques, not so much kitschy junk - old tools, wood burning stoves, wooden wringer washers, and lots of hoosier cabinets. Lunch buffet at a Mexican restaurant was authentic, spicy, and excellent. The bookstore in town had the largest selection of magazines we've seen since Oxford Books in Atlanta closed...

Jun 24, 2011 - Great Sand Dunes day two

Though Great Sand Dunes is unusually dry this year because of lighter than normal snow in the mountains, there is still a little water in one part of the creek that flows beside the sand dunes. A little water, kind of like the runoff from washing your car. However, these beach-deprived people of southern Colorado are flocking to this water and this sand like it is Panama City Beach, armed with sand chairs, buckets, and shovels. Unbelievable! We hiked to this water this morning and could hardly contain our disbelief. Ken is hiking into the...

Jun 23, 2011 - Great Sand Dunes National Park

Great Sand Dunes National Park is located in the Rio Grande River Valley on the west side of the Sangre De Cristo Mountains in Colorado. The park is home to the tallest sand dunes in North America at 750 feet. Erosion brings dirt, sand, and rocks from the San Juan Mountains in western Colorado down to the Rio Grande Valley. Once in the valley, westerly winds blows the eroded sand east into the Sangre De Cristo Mountains. The sand particles are too heavy to get blown across the mountains so they just fall down and form the huge sand dunes at...

Jun 23, 2011 - Great Sand Dunes day one

Not the easiest travel day, but we're here! This RV park overlooks the dune field and we just saw the most spectacular sunset from the front of the motorhome. We drove in to the park this evening to get brochures, and get a feel for the layout - national monument from the 1930s, Great Sand Dunes only became a National Park in 2004. We are at 8200 feet here, so it is much cooler here than it was in Moab.

Apr 27, 2011 - A chilly, snowy WELCOME to Colorado!

After experiencing the beauty of Ghost Ranch and a view of the Paternal Mountain that O'Keefe so often painted, we headed northwards towards Colorado through Kit Carson National Forest (we have decided we could do another ENTIRE trip in the USA, just camping and hiking in the plentiful National Forests. The weather had turned gray long before we reached the foothills but we were a little surprised to see the light snow turn to heavy snow and then to hail and finally sleet. By the time we hit the peak at 10 000 feet it was full on winter. We...