Colorado's Huge Sandbox

Did you know there's a national park called "Great Sand Dunes" in southeastern Colorado? The tallest sand dunes in North America are formed here by a natural combination of the mountains, the sand, the wind and the water. We just learned about this unique spot a few months ago from RVer friends who passed along great photos and stories. So we made a path from Texas to Colorado while working our way to New Mexico. And here we are taking in another beautiful piece of the country.




We arrived at the park on Friday and luckily we were early, around noon, and were able to snatch one of the large enough campsites for Ferd. There are no electric or water hookups in the campground, but that doesn't seem to deter visitors. It filled quickly with families savoring the sunny days over this September weekend.

It's Sunday evening as I write this and all of a sudden there are many empty campsites. In fact, this afternoon we walked out our door to be greeted by five deer calmly nibbling on the bushes around our rig. They gave us a few glances and went on about their business. It was as if they had been waiting for the neighborhood to be evacuated.

But, back to the sand dunes, etc. It's difficult to capture the enormity of these dunes in the photos. The sand erodes from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the background, is moved by creeks and blown by the wind, all this in a cycle that deposits these towering sand mountains. People climb them, ski them and sled them. And the wind swiftly erases the foot prints and grooves left by humans and creates formations that look like giant whipped cream peaks or choppy waves. Well, I had to hike over at least a couple of these mounds. There was a swift wind blowing. But I did make it over a few dunes.

As would be expected, soon as we arrived Jerry learned about the 4wheel trails up into the mountains. We had a beautiful day yesterday following the Medano Pass trail. It starts out on several miles of deep sand, of course. Not long into the trail we came to a popular play area where folks were sledding on a very steep and high section of the dunes. Some even brought skis. There were many determined souls who dragged their sleds to the top for what looked like a fantastic ride down.

Our 22-mile trip over Medano Pass was a great ride too. The trail follows the route used by Zebulon Pike in 1806 and forged by the natives long before his explorations.

The elevation at the top of the pass is 10,040 feet. The views of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and the Wet Mountain Valley are spectacular. On the way up the pass there are nine crossings of Medano Creek. And all along the way there is an abundance of aspens, pines, sage and wildflowers.

It turned out to be a longer route than we thought by the time we came over the other side. But we soon consulted our trusty map and found another interesting "unpaved" road that cut back toward the park and was quite scenic itself. By the time we stopped for pizza at the All Gon Pizza Parlor in Fort Garland we were just about starved. What did I say about getting ourselves back on the diet?!

Making Our Way East

We had a very interesting trip east to Indiana where we are now comfortably located at Jerry's son's house, visiting friends and family and taking care of business.

The trip through Kansas and Missouri was more eventful than we had anticipated when planning to "just jump on I70 and head east." We found a beautiful Corps of Engineers park in eastern Kansas called Wilson Lake where we spent four instead of the two nights we put into our very lose schedule. On our first day we explored the small town of Lucas, Kansas, where it turns out a man named S. P. Dunsmoor built what he called the Garden of Eden in the early 1900s. He started a trend toward "Grassroots Art" in this tiny town. His sculptures adorn the grounds of his home and are unique in their design and their message. Here is a sample of the pieces to be seen there. They include pieces relating to the Bible and political statements concerning his Populist beliefs.
As we "toured" the town we learned that Grassroots Art is blooming everywhere, including the local Art Center displaying various types of work of artists from Kansas. It was fun learning about this style that is totally open to any expression and doesn't necessarily include formal training of any kind. We were smiling a lot!!

One artist, Mri Pilar, has invented a style called ReBarb. Her works cover the walls of a home in Lucas. Here is a sample of one of her pieces. Who would imagine!!!



















Pictured here is Lonesome Joe Meets Flirty Gerti, one of the works at the Lucas Grassroots Arts Center. Don't you just love it.




As we took in a few other small towns in the area, such as Victoria, where we visited the Cathedral of the Plains and Wilson, where we enjoyed a great meal at the "Made From Scratch" local diner, we agreed this stop was one of our favorite surprises on-the-road. That includes Kansas' beautiful rolling hills of waving green wheat that resembled the scenery in Ireland.

As we continued East we stopped at Hermann, Missouri, a river town in wine country that we enjoyed at the beginning of our RV life a few years ago. It was another enjoyable visit, taking in a few wineries, the just-opened German brewery and a fabulous Swiss meat market. This is another place that we would recommend for a nice break for a few days.