Beautiful….Wish You Here

This past week I played in the sand.

But wasn’t on a beach.

On a bit of short notice (because I thought we were staying put for Spring Break this year) I put together a short little escapade to Southern Colorado.

If we travel on Spring Break, I try to make it an outdoorsy adventure, and we have to see a national park. That’s my rule. And I have a long, long, LONG list of things I’d like to see,  and since my son, being a 4th grader, gets into all national parks for free this year, we took full advantage of it.

We headed to Sand Dunes National Park where the tallest sand dunes in North America live.

The dunes were formed after volcanic activity formed the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, (meaning the blood of Christ) and the San Jaun mountains, a valley was formed in between them. Which then a lake followed. Eventually the climate changed and the lake dried up leaving sand residue at the bottom. The winds between the two mountain ranges formed the sand dunes.

And that’s what I wanted to see.

We narrowly missed a huge spring storm and headed south. Staying in Colorado Springs with some great friends of ours (thanks guys for letting us hang out!!!) The drive is pretty, and winds around the mountains, and there are only a couple little places to stop for food, but we managed.  When we arrived, still in the cold and the fog, I was completely unable to see any mountains surrounding the dunes the first day I was there, until sunset, when the fog lifted and the red color of the mountains shown through (and now I knew why they were given the name they were.) We climbed them immediately. My little Dino Dude threw himself down sand cliffs and rolled all the way down and climbed right back up. It was tiring and sleep found me quickly.

Then the second day, he and I, since he had free park admittance, got up at sunrise to see the sun come up while sitting on the dunes. Dunes covered in frost, watching the full moon set on one side of us and watching the sun come up on the other…… it was something we had ever seen. It was purple. Beautifully purple and he and I were the only ones there, amazingly (it was 18 degrees) and we talked quietly and loved every second of it. And on the way back to the car he said “thanks mom for dreadfully waking me up early to see how beautiful it was out here.) We also saw about 200 deer and a small group of elk right next to the park. It was a good start to the day.

On our way out of the park, we made our way up a winding dirt road for a short hike into the frozen Zapata falls. Well worth the extra little excursion. Just for the view. They are tucked away and hidden, but gorgeous once you get there. After that we made our way to the Colorado Gator Farm. This is an interesting place. Most of the animals are rescues that people didn’t want anymore or had confiscated from all over the country (there were several gators from Wyoming) and they had made a place for them to live happily every after. And those gators smiled. A LOT. All of them smiled. The birds were rescues as well. Tortoises too. It was a perfect place for a little boy to go visit. And he got to hold a gator and was rewarded a certificate of bravery….signed by the gator himself (he bit the paper)

Back to Alamosa we went for lunch and on our way back we went. We stayed the night in Pueblo (which even though everyone I had talked to, thought it was a lovely place for the evening.) We had amazing sushi and went for a little stroll along the river walk there. The town was filled with old industrial buildings on its outskirts (which I found fascinating, but ran out of time to shoot)

The next day, we headed home. Made a quick stop at Garden of the Gods. And IKEA.  Was a short one… but an awesome adventure.