June 11-13
Bill and I were spontaneous.
I had talked to a friend (Judy Campbell - 83 years old) while I was giving her haircut (Friday June 5th), and she had gone to the sand dunes with her family that week. She said it was beautiful and so much fun. When I got home, I told Bill we should go. I have had it on my list of things to do in Colorado for years, but we have never had time with all the kids' schedules and summer church and sports activities. I looked up nearby campgrounds, threw some food together, Bill loaded up the camping gear, and we were off.
The first campground we tried was up a horribly rough road, and once we finally bounced and jostled our way there, it was completely full. The campsites looked miserable anyway. Bill suggested that we might just have to drive to the nearest town and stay in a hotel/motel. We decided to drive toward the sand dunes anyway, just to get a closer look. On our way we passed this little place:
Online it had said this campground was still closed due to the pandemic, but people were at the window, so Bill went to check. Yes, they were open. Yes, they had plenty of room. Yay! He paid the fee for two nights, and we drove around to find a campsite that would suit us.
It was perfect.
Although we had to look out for patches of these little cacti.
Once camp was set, we ate dinner, played some cards, and hit the hay.
It was a very windy night, so neither of us slept well with all the flapping and slapping of our tent.
The next morning we were both up early, so we got dressed, ate breakfast, and headed out to the dunes around 7:30am.
We were blessed to have left early - we avoided paying the park entrance fee (don't worry, we weren't cheating the system - there was literally a sign on the money-taker's window that said they weren't open yet, but to drive on through), the dunes weren't very crowded, and we were able to achieve our goal of hiking to the top of "the highest sand dune in North America" before it got too hot.
Total win.
Pictures do not do this place justice. These pictures are taken at the top of the highest dune. I wouldn't have been able to tell that other than the fact that I WAS THERE. It's definitely more impressive in real life. You should go.
It started getting hot on our way back down, but let me just tell ya, it's way faster and much easier going down than it is going up. But you already know that.
There is a river/stream/flowing water at the base of the dunes that is so "refreshing" (Bill's latest favorite word for just about anything). It felt amazing to take our shoes off and cool our feet.
The dunes were starting to fill up with people as we were getting ready to leave. We found a nearby picnic site, and relaxed and ate a snack. We may have both played a few sudoku games on our phones. We are THAT exciting.
We decided afterward to make the 30 minute drive to Alamosa... to say we've been there.
And to get an ice cream at McDonald's (my choice) and some KFC for lunch (Bill's choice).
McDonald's did not have ice cream, but KFC had a great little box lunch, so we got two and headed for a nearby park we had passed on our way. We discovered that it was right next to the Rio Grande, so we walked across the Rio Grande... to say we had.
We drove back to our campsite,
played some more card games (luckily by the end of our trip we had both won twice),
built a fire,
then hit the hay once again. This time we both took a Tylenol PM to help us sleep better - unfortunately it didn't work, and we had yet another long windy night with the tent slapping and flapping endlessly. The next morning we got up and tore down camp. The campground had started filling up, so we were happy to be leaving before it became a small city.
Judy had also told me about stopping by Bishop's Castle. She said it was near Rye, CO. I know where Rye is... it's where we've had many years of Girls Camp at a campground that the Church has a 100 year lease on. It was {sorta} on our way home, so we decided to go. We discovered that it was actually much farther than where Girls Camp is held. We also discovered that it is the darn weirdest place we've been to. (To be fair, Judy had said, "My family went in it... I just stayed outside")
It's basically some haphazard welder/stone-mason's dream with a dungeons and dragons theme. It has a huge warning sign before you enter the premises (much bigger than the above sign - that was just a little sign hung on some of the ironwork). We entered anyway. Bill didn't like it one little bit.
We made our way to {almost} the top, snapped a few pics, then couldn't get out of there fast enough.
We came. We saw. We experienced.
No need to ever return haha.
(When I told Mar about it during one of our weekly video calls, she said, "That kind of makes me want to go even more, now." Crazy girl.
It was a long, heavy-traffic drive home, but it was an adventure.
A spontaneous adventure. Just the two of us. We need to do more of that.
