Our House In…

September 2, 2016:  Leaving New Mexico*, we entered southern Colorado.  Not surprisingly, more amazing vistas:

*Did you miss our New Mexico post?  Interestingly, we’ve just discovered that far fewer of our Facebook followers see our post when we publish on a Saturday than when we publish Monday through Friday during working hours.  That makes us happy, for some reason.  Anyway, you should notice that we’re trying out a new theme that should display pictures better.  As always, the pictures displayed in groups can be clicked on to enlarge.  Also, this new theme doesn’t underline links, so you’ll have to be on the lookout for colored text.

Now back to our story.

Our goal for the morning was Great Sand Dunes National Park.  As you approach from the south, you can see the range the dunes lie against, and then the dunes themselves, for more than an hour before you actually reach the park.

We stopped at the visitors center, and took in some dune views:

We didn’t really feel like hiking on sand, particularly as we were warned that the can can get up to 150° F (66° C) in the sun, and the afternoon brings a risk of lightning.  There were plenty of people on the sand, so it probably wasn’t that bad, and maybe we’ll go back some day and hike the dunes earlier in the day.

What we did instead was hike a ways up into the surrounding hills to get a better view of the dunes:

Along the hike, we encountered some of the local residents:

You can see our house from here:

This is just another example of why we’re glad we chose to travel in a small Class B motorhome.  We can park just about anywhere a large pickup can.  It’s allowed us to go a lot of places we couldn’t get to in a larger vehicle.

More pics of the dunes:

Driving north from the park toward Denver, we decided to stop in Poncha Springs, Colorado.  Unbeknownst to us, it is the home of Elevation Beer Company, which happened to be about a half a mile from the place we stopped.  Convenient.

Elevation makes some nice beer, and they’re very nice people (which is kind of a cliché when it comes to brewers, but it’s true.)

The next day, we continued on to Denver to meet our friends.

In Denver, we ate and drank and had good conversation with some old friends and some new.  Not much to report, except that Great Divide Brewing Company makes great beer.   But don’t just take our word for it:

That was about it for Colorado.  Yes, a very superficial visit, but our goal was to get somewhere, not to see the sights.  We love Colorado, and we’re sure we’ll be back many times in the future for more comprehensive exploration.

Thanks for reading!