Today we headed out early and made our way to Alamos, Colorado. This area is very close to the southern border tip of the state.
In this area you'll find the Great Sand Dunes National Park.
These are the tallest dunes in the United States, they cover 3000sq miles....BIG!
It took us 2 hours to climb to the top! And 15 minutes to run back down! (the run was the best!)
Today we drove about 5.5hrs to Mancos, Colorado. Here we visited Mesa Verde National Park. This is an area where the Pueblo Indians resided for hundreds of years. For centuries the lived on the land, for an unknown reason they decided to move their homes and families to the sides of the cliffs. There they built homes and villages on the cliff faces.
This is a one night stay for us, tomorrow we head to Great Sand Dunes National Park.
The scenery in southern Colorado is pretty amazing...the photo's above include some of the sights along our drive today.
We are staying 2 nights in Gunnison, Colorado. So today we decided to rent a car and drive to The Black Canyon of the Gunnison. It was only an hour away and a very windy drive...the money was worth spending on the car, rather than driving a bus!
We had lunch at the canyon. Hiked about 5km's! We saw plenty of Black Hawks, some deer,a few chipmunks and lizards...but no bears.
Tomorrow we head to Mancos, Co.
This morning was our last day in the Rockies. It was ended with a horseback trail ride through some of the park.
We didn't see any wildlife but we have seen a lot of dead pine trees. 80% of the west side of the Rockies has been wiped out by a pine beetle! The damage is so severe that most of the birds have left (which explains why it's so quiet), it is moving it's way east and will eventually wipe out the rest of the park. The Log/Pencil Pine is the only one affected, the Blue Spruce is fine as other trees. It's quite devastating to see and the park has lost most of it's beauty. The Ranger told us at the Visitor Centre that it will be at least 100 years for the park to recover and re-grow.
After our horse ride we packed up and headed south 5 hours to Gunnison Canyon National Park. We will be here 2 nights.. Some rain in the distance but all good here.
Sorry everyone for the delay... But being out in the wilderness the mobile phone coverage is a bit sketchy, the phone service has been great, only the data has been an issue.
Anyway... Time to catch up!
Day 4 was great... We rode back into town and did some kayaking on Grand Lake and Shadow Lake. Hunter did a great job and had very good technique. Shaina on the other hand just enjoyed the ride!
We had lunch again in town, played some mini-golf, then rode back to camp. On the ride back we saw deer feeding off the side of the road, so we stopped for a few minutes and snapped some photos.
We had a couple of spare hours back at camp so we decided to do some laundry. In the meantime the skies opened and down it poured for a good hour.
This was our first encounter of rain and apparently the Rocky Mountain National Park has been in a 10 year drought... So the rain was much needed.
No barbeque that night or campfire, just some very loud UNO card games and then a movie.
We did have some major excitement...we saw 3 massive moose walk right through camp and came within 6 feet of the RV! We had front row seats... I took some photos with my camera. (I will try to upload some later)
Today we were able to sleep in!
We were up at 7:15am! Not quite the sleep in we planned, as the sun was very bright inside the RV! Tonight I will figure out how to cover the windows with some towels to keep the sun out (the windows have shades, just not dark ones).
Had a light breakfast this morning, hopped on our bikes and rode a very fast down hill 5kms into the town of Grand Lake. This also meant a very up hill ride back!!!
We walked the town, shopped and had a nice lunch on the patio of the local restaurant.
On the return we did some light grocery shopping and loaded up my brother's backpack with the heavy items..... 12 pack of 500ml water bottles!!!
Had a barbeque dinner and then lit the fire pit, so the kids could cook marshmallows!
Tomorrow we are planning to do some kayaking and maybe some horse back riding.
The day got off to an early start! I woke at 5:30am! Yes, very early for me! A quick breakfast and we were on the road by 8:30am.
It was also another full day of driving.. My Tom Tom navigation device I think gave us the scenic route and the drive was a little longer than expected... Another hour or so! But you can't complain about the Colorado Rockies scenery, so at least the drive had some spectacular views!
We made it to camp around 4:30 pm. Set up took a little longer than expected, but in the end we did it! We will be here for 3 nights! Can't wait to ride bikes and possibly some horse riding!
After some last minute packing we were finally on our way! This years destination? Colorado!
Our first day mainly consisted of driving....all 9 hours. We made it to Doniphan, Nebraska, which is where we had an over night stop. Lunch was eaten on the road...sandwiches etc.
I had pre-made lasagna, so dinner was easy also!
