Great Sand Dunes National Park

We arrived at Blanca RV Park on Monday afternoon after another trip through mountains.  There was about an 8 mile stretch where we were climbing the entire time.  Kevin is pretty sure he heard the truck chanting “I think I can, I think I can”.  At one point, our top speed was 35 MPH, but we made it!

I found this campground in Passport America.  The plusses are it is close to Great Sand Dunes National Park and the price is $10 a night for a full hook-up site with 30 amp service. There are also showers and laundry, but I haven’t checked them out.  Otherwise, the place is pretty much a dump.  There are a few mobile homes in the back with a bunch of kids running around.  There are also several construction workers staying here for the summer.  The highway is close, and you can hear trucks going by.  So, it definitely doesn’t have any wow factor, but the price is right for a few days of exploring the area.

Yesterday we spent several hours at Great Sand Dunes National Park.  It’s another amazing place!  This is a 30 square mile area of sand dunes nestled between two mountain ranges.  Due to the contrasting direction of the winds coming off of each mountain range, the sand is blown back and forth, keeping it in the valley.  The tallest dune is 750 feet making it the highest sand dune in North America.  It’s one of those areas where you’re driving along the range, and all of a sudden these amazing sand dunes appear. The Sangre De Cristo Mountain range is behind the dunes, and the views of the dunes and mountains are incredible.  Pictures just don’t do it justice.

We started out at the visitor’s center where we watched another very informative movie.  There were several displays showing how the dunes were formed and explaining the history of the area.  This was the view from the back of the visitor center.  The tiny dots on the highest dune are people.  That dune is named High Dune and is 650 feet high.  If you climb to the top of it, you can see the tallest dune, Star Dune, which is another 1-1/2 miles behind High Dune.

We thought we were up for the challenge of climbing to the top of High Dune.  After all, we hiked on trails with higher elevation gains last week in RMNP.  So, we drove to the parking lot, and set off.  I had my hiking pole which came in very handy.  I must say the altitude really kicked my butt this time.  Climbing in sand is tough, and it was pretty much straight up once you got to the dunes.  I was really having trouble breathing, and Kevin didn’t look so good either.  I’d climb about 20 or 30 steps, and have to stop because it felt like my heart was going to explode, and I couldn’t breath.  We got about three-quarters of the way to the top of High Dune, and I decided it was time to quit.  I was getting a little scared that pushing on might be medically unsound.  The picture shows how far we got.  High Dune is the highest peak in the back.  We only saw a few people make it to the top.  Most turned back far from the top.  One of the rangers we talked to last week told us that it actually takes people about 4 months to fully acclimate to the higher elevation.

Here’s Kevin on the way down.  If you look closely, you can see people on different parts of the dunes.  There are no paths.  Hikers are allowed to go anywhere they want. 

Further into the park was the park campground.  There was a 2 mile round trip trail starting at the campground called Dunes Overlook Trail.  That sounded like a good trail for us.  It was pretty much uphill the entire mile to the top.  Kevin wants me to be sure and tell you that all trails in Colorado go uphill :)

The views of the dunes along this trail were breathtaking.  The pine trees that grow here are called Pinon trees.  Here are a few pictures of the views from the trail.

On the left side of this picture is the parking lot.  You can see how far it is to climb to the top.

We had a very enjoyable day exploring Great Sand Dunes National Park.  It was another tiring day, but as I’ve said before, it’s a good kind of tired :)

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

Tunnel Drive Trail

Sunday morning we decided to take a hike on the Tunnel Drive Trail on the outskirts of Canon City, Colorado.

As an aside, Canon City is pronounced Canyon City.  When the town was established, a newspaper reporter wrote the new name using the Spanish spelling which has that little symbol over the first n (I forget what it’s called).  Most every place I saw it written, it was without the symbol.  Funny how one little mistake can change things forever.

We checked out the trail online, and it was said to be a 2 mile hike with a steep incline at the beginning.  I figured this would be a great time to try out my new hiking pole.  The first hundred yards of the trail were somewhat steep, but not that bad.  Once you got to the top, the rest of it was a nice flat, wide gravel trail right along the side of the cliff.  I liked using the hiking pole on the uphill and downhill part of the trail.  I ended up carrying it on the flat portion because it felt like it was slowing me down.  It’s collapsible so at least it wasn’t a problem carrying it.  I also think I might end up with a blister on my thumb if I used it for a long time.  Now I’ll probably need a hiking glove :)

Near the beginning are three tunnels right through the rock.  This picture is of the first two.  The third is a little further down the trail and is the longest one.

The entire hike was on a cliff along the Arkansas River with some beautiful views.  This train is the Royal Gorge Train which you can ride from the Royal Gorge Bridge to Canon City (about 10 miles). 

This area of Colorado is considered to be high desert.  They’ve had an unusually warm and dry fall so everything is quite brown and dusty.  Along the trail were quite a few cactus as well as these little sunflowers.

 

 

This rock formation looks like a stegosaurus to me.  His head is laying down on the right, then you have his spikes on his back and his tail on the left with a spike.  Either you see it, or you think I’m crazy :)

It took us about 1-1/2 hours to finish the 4 mile hike.  We headed back home to watch the Green Bay Packers win their game and spent the rest of the day relaxing.

Right now we’re driving to Blanca, Colorado to spend the next few days exploring in the Great Sand Dunes National Park area.

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

Florissant Fossil Beds

One of my favorite activities to do while traveling is to visit National Parks and Monuments.  I’ve never been disappointed in what they have to offer.

On Saturday we drove about 50 miles to the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument.  This area is internationally renowned for its variety and number of fossils, particularly of insects and plants.  Paleontologists have collected more than 50,000 specimens for museums and universities around the world.

The fossils are from a time period of 35 million years ago when the area had a much warmer environment.  Erupting volcanoes sent ash and mudslides through the valley, preserving plants and insects in remarkably detailed fossils.

Also found here are fossilized redwood trees.  The mudslides preserved about 15 feet of the bottom of the trees.  This picture is of one of the tree stumps.  Kevin is on the right side reading the sign.  You can see how large these trees were.

We spent about three hours at the site.  We watched the 15 minute movie, perused the displays at the visitor center, and went on a moderate 4 mile hike.  The hiking trail took us to the Hornbek homestead.  This homestead was owned by Adeline Hornbek who was the first woman to file for a homestead site on land that is now part of Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument.  She was a remarkable widowed pioneer woman who established a successful ranch while raising four children.  The original house is still intact.  The other period buildings have been moved to the site.

From Florissant we drove to the town of Cripple Creek.  We visited the Pikes Peak Heritage Center at Cripple Creek which had an excellent movie explaining how the the town sprang up in the late 1800s after the discovery of gold in the mountains of the Pikes Peak range.  At it’s peak, the town had around 50,000 residents, 90 doctors, 15 newspapers, and numerous gaming parlors with ladies for entertaining.  More than 22,400,000 ounces of gold were extracted from over 500 mines in the area.  Three commercial railroads were established.  As mines began to close, the town experienced some hard times.  It has reinvented itself as a tourist area by opening many casinos.  There are over 18 casinos in this small town.  The main historic buildings have almost all been turned into casinos.  There are also a couple of mine tours, a train ride, and numerous small museum buildings.  We enjoyed the Heritage Center because it had excellent displays and it was free :)

Gold is still being mined in the area, but is pretty much controlled by one company.  You can see these mine shafts on top of the mountains.  This picture shows one of them as well as the aspen trees.  Many of the aspens are losing their leaves.

Our drive was along an area known as the Gold Belt Tour.  The road meanders through a valley between two mountain ranges.  The scenery was magnificent.  There are many ranches throughout this area.  On our morning drive, we saw numerous road signs warning to watch for cattle, but we saw only a few cattle.  On the way back, we saw many cattle, including these guys in the road.  They must have been napping earlier :)

As we were heading back, we encountered a little bit of rain.  This is the first rain we’ve had since we’ve been in Colorado.  The clouds over the mountains created some beautiful scenes.  Below are some scenic pictures from our drive yesterday.

You can see the valley and ranch land between the mountains.

I thought these rocks were cool.

This mountain is Pike’s Peak.

I get so excited when witnessing nature’s beauty!

Finally, I promised I’d tell you which famous person’s profile is depicted in the Royal Gorge mountain picture I posted yesterday.  Pidge was the first person to respond correctly with John F. Kennedy.  I liked Karen and Al’s guess of Archie and Judy’s guess of Abe Lincoln.  Thanks also to Judy for identifying the bird as a mountain bluebird.  After looking up images of mountain bluebirds, I think it was a female.  Thanks, Judy!

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

Royal Gorge – Canon City, CO

Welcome to new follower Pidge.  I’m so glad you’ve joined us.

On Friday we visited the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park.  The campground gave us a coupon so it cost us $19.29 a person to get in the park.  We definitely felt it was worth it.

The bridge was built in 1907 strictly as a tourist attraction to bring people to the gorge.  It is 1,053 feet high and is the world’s highest suspension bridge.  It took 5 months to build, and no lives were lost during construction.  I’m always so amazed at the ingenuity of people so long ago.

 

 

Included in the admission price is a trip across the bridge.  You can walk, drive your car or take a trolley across.  Also included is a ride on the aerial tram, a wildlife park, a ride on the incline railway, and a movie about the bridge.

The aerial tram is the world’s longest single-span aerial tram.  It is 2,200 feet long and is 1,178 feet above the Arkansas River.  It was built in 1968.  It takes about 5 minutes to get across.  I was a bit scared to go on it, but once we were moving, I was fine.  It was an amazing view.  I took the picture above from the viewing platform on the north side of the gorge.  You have to look closely to see the tiny little red tram near the center of the picture.  That tram is actually large enough to carry 35 people!

Here’s a view of the bridge from the tram.

 

 

 

 

 

For an additional charge you can experience the Royal Rush Skycoaster.  There were 3 girls who were brave enough to give it a try.  They were strapped into a harness, lifted up about 100 feet and let go to swing 1,300 feet over the gorge.  Top “flying” speed is about 50 mph.  No thank you :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The wildlife park had elk, bison and big horn sheep.  They had a white bison.  I’ve never seen a white one before.

 

 

The incline railway is the world’s steepest incline railway.  It is 1,550 feet in length with a 100% grade.  You stand in cars that are kind of stacked on top of each other.  It takes about 5 minutes to ride down.  It was built by the same construction crew that built the bridge.

 

 

 

Here’s a view looking up at the bridge and aerial tram from the bottom of the incline railway. The tram is the tiny speck in the center of the picture.

 

The bridge can be seen from our campground which is about 5 miles away.  The large a-frame structure behind the bridge is the skycoaster.

 

These birds are flying around all over the campground.  They look gray when they are sitting, but are very blue when they fly.  Does anyone have any idea what kind of birds they might be?

I leave you today with a puzzle.  The mountain in the picture below is supposed to be a profile of a famous person.  Can you guess who it is?  I’ll tell you tomorrow :)

 

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

Lucky or Unlucky?

I published my blog yesterday as we were driving from Estes Park to Canon City.  Shortly after I posted it, we had a very scary experience.

We were still on I-25 and as we crested a hill, we saw traffic completely stopped in the left lane and everyone hitting their brakes.  We were in the center lane and there was traffic in the right lane.  Kevin was able to slow down considerably, but as we got closer, we saw the problem.  The left lane had a ladder laying across it with a car stopped in front of the ladder and another car had crashed into the front car.  The center lane had a step-stool laying in it.  Kevin tried to straddle it, but caught it with the back right tire of the truck.  We heard the noise as we hit it, but had nowhere to go as there were cars on both sides of us.

Everything seemed to be all right, so we continued on.  We were both pretty shook.  When we pulled off to get gas, we saw there was a hole in the camper right above one of the front jacks.  Luckily, the jacks are working.  As Kevin inspected the hole, he found the rubber foot from the step-stool stuck inside.

I really hope everyone around us was able to avoid an accident.  It happened so quickly, it’s really a blur.  So, it was unlucky that it happened at all.  But, I feel incredibly lucky that it wasn’t worse.  We really could have been in a serious accident.  I’m thankful that Kevin is such an excellent driver.  He did the best he could!

I’ve contacted our insurance company, and we’ll see what they say.  We’re not in an area where we can get it fixed, and we’re hoping to wait until we are in a place for a longer period of time.  Kevin has covered it with tape to keep water and creatures out of the hole.  Of course, if the insurance company wants us to get it taken care of sooner, we’ll just have to readjust our plans.

As I said yesterday, I hate interstates.  There seem to be more and more crazy drivers out there.  Whoever lost those ladders was nowhere to be seen and was responsible for a great deal of chaos.  Our 5-1/2 hour, 250 mile trip yesterday was quite stressful.  Defensive driving has become incredibly important.

Deciding which roads to travel is a real conundrum.  On the one hand, interstates are usually fairly flat and have gas stations readily available.  State and county roads can be just fine, but in a mountainous area like this, it can be risky to travel on them. 

We’re staying at the Royal View Campground about 10 miles west of Canon City, Colorado.  This place is very well maintained with nice level sites.  We have full hook-ups with 50 amp service.  The cost with tax is $32.40 a night after the Good Sam discount.  There is free wi-fi, but it’s very slow.  Here’s the view outside of our back window.

It’s been difficult finding inexpensive camping in these tourist areas.  That’s the price you pay for being a tourist :) 

We’re looking forward to an enjoyable day today at the Royal Gorge.

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

A Scenic Drive

We were invited to visit cousin Mark and his family on Wednesday.  They live in Arvada, Colorado which is about 60 miles from Estes Park. 

I have a book that I bought several years ago that describes 120 most scenic drives in the US.  One of these was from Estes Park to the Denver area, so we decided to take that drive.  The route is called the Peak to Peak Scenic Drive.  It takes you from Long’s Peak in RMNP to Pike’s Peak.  It was a beautiful drive with mountains, canyons and glowing aspens.  It took us 2.5 hours, but it was worth it.

We made a stop at Camping World and Wal-Mart and then we headed to Red Rock Park and Amphitheater.  It’s an area with huge red rock formations.  In the early 1900s several groups of citizens and politicians had an idea to build an amphitheater between some of these large red rocks because of the excellent acoustic sound.  During the depression, the CCC built this amphitheater without any machines.  They hauled thousands of yards of cement and rock up the hill. 

Time and time again I am amazed what the CCC accomplished in the 1930s.  Roosevelt had the right idea when he spent “stimulus money” on forming that group.  No money for Wall Street banks and large corporations.  He put young men to work.  We are still reaping the rewards.

The visitor’s center is perched high on top of the amphitheater.  We climbed 393 steps to the top.  I was sure huffing and puffing.  There was a chart at the visitor center that explained how at that altitude there was 80% less oxygen than at sea level.  Also, because the air is so much drier, it also makes it harder to breathe.  I feel better.  I think of myself as being in pretty decent shape, but I have been running out of breath so easily here.

I forgot my camera and I wasn’t going back down to get it :)  I did have my cell phone and took a few pictures with it.  Unfortunately, I’m having trouble syncing my phone to my laptop so I can’t download the pictures.  I did take a few from the bottom.  This was an incredible place to see.  I’d love to attend a concert here someday.  Acts such as The Beatles, Willie Nelson, The Grateful Dead, Mariah Carey, U2 and many others have performed there.

The u-shaped area at the base of the huge rock on the right is the visitor center and amphitheater. The fence in the foreground is at road level.  That’s where the climb begins.

We spent the evening with Mark and Dolly and helped their son, Daniel, celebrate his 21st birthday.  It has been really wonderful spending time with them.  Kevin has fond memories of going to Mark’s families house in St. Louis for Easter each year.  Another bonus of this lifestyle is an opportunity to meet up with distant family and friends.  Thanks Mark and Dolly for your incredible hospitality and to Daniel for letting us share in his special birthday.

We are now driving to Canon City, Colorado to the next 4 days to explore the Royal Gorge area.  We’re traveling on I-25 because Kevin feels it is the safest way to get there.  Many of the state and local highways are in the mountains, and we didn’t want to take any chances.  Driving on the interstate makes me nervous.  I hate that people can switch lanes in front of us.  We again had an idiot today that zipped right in front of us.  Kevin had to hit the brakes hard.

I think all vehicles should come equipped with a paintball gun in the front grill.  When a moron zips in front of you and is driving like an idiot, you should be able to zap him with a paintball.  That way everyone would know who the most dangerous drivers are!

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!

Close Encounters of the Elk Kind

The plan for Tuesday was to spend the day in Estes Park.  We started at the Stanley hotel. 

It was while Stephen King and his wife were guests at the Stanley Hotel that he conceived the idea for his novel "The Shining." The hotel was fictionalized as the Overlook Hotel in the novel and subsequent film and television versions of the novel. The room that King stayed in was room 217 which is claimed to be haunted.

Interestingly, the theatrical film directed by Stanley Kubrick was not filmed at the Stanley Hotel. Kubrick didn’t think there was enough snow in Estes Park to make the hotel look secluded enough.  The 1990s television version of "The Shining" included exterior scenes at the Stanley. 

Famous guests have been President Theodore Roosevelt, John Philip Sousa, and the emperor of Japan. While filming "Dumb and Dumber," actor Jim Carey stayed in the infamous room 217. The Titanic survivor known as the Unsinkable Molly Brown was also a guest. The hotel was built by the inventor of the Stanley Steamer automobile.

Our next stop was back at the store where I bought my hiking shoes.  Many people on the hiking trails have hiking poles.  I decided to buy one and give it a try.

We then went to Estes Lake in the heart of the city.  There is a 3.75 mile hiking/biking trail that goes around the lake.  We walked all the way around.  There is a golf course that runs along part of the trail.  Many elk were hanging out on the course.

We were about three quarters of the way around the lake when we saw a group of people ahead of us looking at something.  Then we saw the group of elk walking along the trail.  There were 13 female cows and one very large bull.  I took a few pictures and some video.  The elk were walking towards us. 

This path has a highway on one side and the lake on the other.  We were next to a large electric tower.  They kept coming so I got up on the side of the path behind the electric tower.  I took a bit more video as they came by. 

Now the bull was coming a little behind them.  Instead of going on the path like the cows did, he came up on the side of the trail where we were.  We were on one side of the tower and he was right on the other side of it.  Kevin was in front of me and could have easily touched him.  He stopped right next to us and kind of looked at us and then continued on.  He was definitely letting us know who was in charge.  I was pretty scared.  I actually contemplated jumping into the lake. 

You’re always told to not get too close to wild animals, but this time we were there first and they got too close to us.  I was wishing we could have been closer to the elk we saw yesterday at RMNP.  I guess I need to be careful what I wish for, because that elk encounter was too close for comfort!!!

If I knew how to insert video, I would show you the video clip I took right after he went past.  You can see the tower we were next to.  As we were getting back to the beginning of the trail, we heard some bull elk bugling.  I got some video of one of them bugling.  We spent a while sitting on a bench and it sounded like the elk were having a bugling contest.  It was an amazing experience!!

 

This Colorado Red Tailed Hawk was sitting on top of a pine tree next to the trail.  We sure had a wildlife kind of day :)

 

 

 

 

 

We finished our walk and spent about an hour wandering around the shops downtown.  My big purchase was 3 postcards.  Kevin found a t-shirt and a coffee mug.

Cousin Mark sent me the pictures he took on Sunday.

Here we are at Alberta Falls in RMNP.

 

 

 

And here we are at Emerald Lake in RMNP.

 

 

 

And here are Mark, Dolly, and Daniel at Emerald Lake.

 

 

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!