On Tuesday (August 18), we left Longmont and continued West on I-70 to the town of Silt, basically a layover town for us to break up the drive to our next National Park. It was the drive that we were dreading most – through and over the Rockies. We started at about 6,000 feet elevation, reached 11,000 feet a couple of times, and ended at 5,000 feet…so clearly lots of hills, both up and down. There were four tunnels, one of them about 1.5 miles long. Lots of long, steep downward grades which the truck handled beautifully (we are now big fans of ‘manual’ mode where the engine does the braking). Mark drove the entire time, for which I was very grateful! It was another beautiful, scenic drive – definitely the norm here in Colorado!

Wednesday morning, we visited an alpaca farm near our campground. They are just the most delightful animals – so gentle and curious, watching us intently (and undoubtedly hoping we’d give them food, which we did not). There were so many different color coats, and differences in their heads/facial features. We had a wonderful time walking through and seeing almost 100 alpaca, and at the end, we also saw two Highland cows. Such fun!

In the afternoon, we took a short drive to Rifle Falls State Park. We weren’t sure the waterfalls would have much water, given that most of Colorado is in a drought, but we decided to take a chance…and boy, are we glad we did! Rifle Falls are absolutely beautiful! There are three 60-foot waterfalls, all of them gushing with water from Rifle Creek. It was truly like an oasis – so much lush foliage and moss when the surrounding area is basically brown and desert-like. This whole day was one of those unexpected delights that truly give meaning to “Enjoy the Journey”!

Some scenery from our campground, too…

On Thursday, we were back on I-70 for an incredibly scenic drive – I took so many pictures from the passenger seat because it was just non-stop jaw-dropping scenery at every turn. It was so interesting, too…on one side of the truck, it was brown and barren (and similar in appearance to the Badlands of South Dakota). On the other side, it was green & lush. I guess we know where the Colorado River runs! We reached our Westernmost point (Grand Junction, CO) and then turned South to our destination in Montrose, CO…the gateway to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park!

We headed to the park pretty early on Friday given the forecast of temperatures in the mid-90s (near-record heat for this area) in the afternoon. From the first viewpoint to the last along South Rim Road, we were just amazed at the depth of this canyon (2,250 feet), and how narrow it is at the bottom (just 40 feet across). At its widest point, it’s 1,100 feet across. The walls of schist and gneiss change color as the light hits them, and the veining in some areas truly looks like a painting. As we stood at the overlooks, it was deafeningly silent, except for the rushing water of the Gunnison River hundreds of feet below us. Another WOW National Park!

I was particularly fascinated by the trees and vegetation; so many trees are twisted and bent due to the wind

On Saturday morning, we went to the “Museum of the Mountain West” just down the road from our campground. The museum was founded by a retired historical archaeologist who has dedicated his life to preserving the history of the West. There are 25 buildings on the property, all moved there from the local area, and thousands of artifacts to tell the story of life in this part of the country back in the 1800s and early 1900s. It was an impressive collection and fascinating to walk through!

We made a quick stop at the local Farmers Market and walked along their charming Main Street.

Saturday afternoon was chores and downtime, in preparation for our departure on Sunday morning, when we headed South to the town of Mancos, Colorado…gateway to our next National Park, Mesa Verde.

Sunday’s drive was mostly on the San Juan Skyway Scenic Byway, and it was truly beautiful. The route certainly had its share of curves, climbs, and descents; oohing and aahing, we made our way to Mancos.

Our campground is basically across the street from the entrance to Mesa Verde National Park, so we headed there Monday morning, an appropriate thing to do at the start of National Parks week and the 110^th birthday of the National Park Service.

Mesa Verde is one of the oldest National Parks, founded in 1906, with a mission to preserve the dwellings and heritage of the Ancestral Pueblo people who lived here from 600-1300 AD. The park includes 600 cliff dwellings and some of the most notable and best-preserved archaeological sites in the US. The park is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one of just 23 located in the US.

We made our way along the park highway, stopped at several overlooks with wide views of the surrounding valleys and mesas, and ultimately to the Southern area of the park where we saw several cliff dwellings as well as some of the earliest “pithouses” which date back to 550-750 AD.

The highlight of our time at the park was our ranger-led tour of Cliff Palace, the largest cliff dwelling in North America. It was bult around 1200 and features about 150 rooms and 23 round ceremonial “kivas”. Roughly 100 people lived there until about 1300 when they left the area, likely due to climate changes and drought. To walk through this space and listen to the ranger talk about the people and their lives was incredible – once-in-a-lifetime experience that was well worth the ladders we had to climb and the tight spaces we had to move through to get into and out of the palace.

On Tuesday, we made a one-hour drive Southwest to the famous “Four Corners Monument”. It’s the one and only place in the US where four states come together, and it was pretty cool to stand in Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado all at the same time. Along the drive, we got to see many cool rock formations as well as some horses!

Tuesday afternoon wasn’t very interesting…washing of our clothes at the laundromat and our truck at the car wash; the truck has gotten progressively dirtier as we’ve traveled across Colorado. So much dirt and dust everywhere, especially since it is so dry right now. Fire danger is high almost everywhere we’ve been, and campgrounds have banned campfires. It’s so different from what we are used to – humidity levels are generally around 20% – definitely a very dry heat!

On Wednesday, we decided to take a train ride. The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad runs scenic trips between those two cities. They offer a round-trip option that takes about nine hours total, or you can take a bus from Durango to Silverton, and then enjoy the train ride for the return trip – total time is about five hours, so we opted for that. It was wonderful! It’s a vintage steam locomotive that’s been in operation since the 1920s and it was fascinating to watch them stop to fill the engine with water so the coal could heat it and turn it to steam to power the train. We learned about how narrow gauge was so much more appropriate, given the hilly, narrow terrain they had to build it on. Plus, we got to visit both Durango and Silverton, two authentically Western towns full of charm. Oh, and the scenery was pretty spectacular, as we traveled alongside the Highline Cliffs and Animas River for about 45 miles. There are several classes and types of cars you can choose from, and we opted for the ‘open-air’ car with seats facing outward and it was perfect – we could just sit and watch the world go by. It was a little less enjoyable when it started to rain, but we escaped to the enclosed coach car next to us. A fabulous day enjoying the beauty of Colorado in a different way (and Mark didn’t have to drive, for a change!).

Thursday (August 27th) was a travel day, as we started our Eastbound journey, from Mancos to Alamosa. It was, like our other travel days through Colorado, full of amazing scenery. We made a quick stop at Chimney Rock National Monument which was home to about 2,000 Pueblo between 925 and 1125. They built their Great House based on the moon and the location of Chimney Rock and nearby Companion Rock.

At one point in our drive, we had a very close call with wildlife, when a large deer darted out of the trees right in front of our truck. Mark’s reflexes were fantastic and he slammed the brakes just in time to avoid hitting the deer (keep in mind, those brakes had to stop the truck and the trailer in a split second!) Phew! We had to pull over and catch our breath after that one.

Alamosa is the gateway town for Great Sand Dunes National Park, our fourth and final National Park of the trip. It is in South Central Colorado, on the high desert, about 50 miles North of the New Mexico border. On Friday, we headed into the National Park, about 30 minutes away. We could see the dunes in the distance, and we kept thinking we were almost there, but we had another 10 or 15 miles to go! The dunes sit in the shadow of the Sangre de Cristo (Blood of Christ) Mountains, and they are truly massive – the highest in North America, in fact! The sand and sediment came from the two nearby mountain ranges and was deposited into a huge lake that once covered the valley floor. The lake got smaller, and the southwesterly winds caused the grains of sand to pile up below the mountains. Northeasterly winds then pushed the dunes back on themselves, creating the Great Sand Dunes about 440,000 years ago!

At the Visitor Center, we watched the park film and caught a very interesting ranger talk about park posters and designs over the years – how they evolved and changed with the times, and how they got to the current look that’s been in use since the 1970s. From there, we headed to the Dunes parking lot and started the trek out across the dunes. There are no trails here…you can walk wherever you want, and amazingly, the dunes really haven’t changed since early photos that were taken over 150 years ago. If you’ve ever walked on a sandy beach, you know it’s more strenuous than walking on pavement or grass. We probably walked a little over a mile round trip at 8,000 feet elevation and it was quite a workout. And we got heavier as we went, since our shoes and socks were slowly filling up with sand as we traversed the dunes. It’s popular to sled or sand-board on the dunes, but we decided we didn’t really want to have to climb up high enough to do that!

We took a short hike through a very wooded area just across the road from the dunes (amazing the differences in vegetation!) and got some nice views from the elevated trail. There are seven insect species that thrive at the Great Sand Dunes, and live nowhere else in the world…just unreal how they adapt to this barren environment.

Saturday was a pretty quiet day at the campground. Just one quick trip to see this nearby memorial…apparently, Amelia Earhart landed in a field in Alamosa in 1932 after getting lost in the area. She disappeared five years later.

And that wraps up this portion of our journey; tomorrow we head East for our final couple of days in Colorado. Three incredible, unique National Parks plus so many other sights as we’ve made our way around Colorful Colorado!