Day 3 – Colorado, Sand Dunes

Day 3 - Friday, June 10, 2011

We spent the night at Wal-Mart in Trinidad, Colorado. It was pretty noisy, because it was right by the highway, but I slept  good anyway. It was really COLD in the morning! Really appreciated the furnace in the camper. We headed off toward the Great Sand Dunes National Park. The sand dunes have formed at the base of the mountain and are really really tall. There is a little creek that runs through the park and you can wade around in it.

The Sand Dunes, notice the pile of sand at the base of the mountain.

It didn’t take Kasey long to get to be a sandy mess!

Kasey ran down this huge sand dune, then had to come back up, it was really steep, but he made it to the top.

 

Running down another one!

Finally made it back down to the creek!

Why sit in it when you can just lay in it?

Clean up time!  He was covered in sand.

We hiked a long way toward the top of the sand dunes. We didn’t make it all the way, but we did get pretty far. Kasey did really good, I was impressed. He really liked running down the hills.

We then drove out of there and headed toward Durango, Colorado. It was a long drive, we went up Wolf Creek Pass and had to go really slow down because the brakes on the camper were getting hot. One section of the road was really tight switch back curves, it was crazy! There was also snow on top of the mountain, we pulled off at the continental divide and walked out on the snow in our flip flops. Unfortunately, Kasey and I both stepped in a snow pile that wasn’t very hard and our feet sunk down in the snow and wet icy water, it was freezing! Kasey started crying, we had to get his Crocs off him and dry his feet off, then Mark carried him back to the camper.

 

We went through Durango and drove down town, there really wasn’t any place to park the camper. They have a really nice train ride there, that goes from Durango to Silverton, but we didn’t want to go on it. Tomorrow, we are heading to Mesa Verde and the Grand Canyon.

We found a campsite outside of Durango that is the coolest campsite I’ve been to. It’s got this little creek that runs through it. I opened the window so I could hear the water flowing. So peaceful. It was really nice to take a shower tonight too.  I was happy they had wireless here so I could get a couple of things posted on my blog.