Sand Dunes, Mesa Verde and Home!

We had a wonderful time Wednesday with our dear friends the Vaughans.  It’s hard to believe how big the boys are getting and they all are doing well.  Here’s a group shot.

 

Then we drove down to Pueblo for the night and hit the Great Sand Dunes NP the next morning.  It’s really neat, and it was my first time to see this phenomena.  It’s really odd…the largest (tallest) sand dunes in North America, right out in the middle of the Rocky Mountains.  So weird…

 

We wanted to hike to the highest dune (nearly 800 feet up), but the sand was about 140 degrees!  So, we decided to just hike up to the first summit and slide down. (BTW – If you’ve seen “Lawrence of Arabia”, they filmed some of it here.)

After playing in the sand for a few hours, we took off to Mesa Verde NP, where we had reservations for a deluxe room.  Unfortunately, when we checked in we discovered they had not cleaned our room and housekeeping had already left. So we were stuck in the two oldest rooms they had…no windows, no AC, and no view.  Iccckkk!  It was so hot and nasty none of us slept at all.

But the next morning we woke and explored the Mesa Verde Ruins.  This was awesome.  These are cliff dwellings that were used by native peoples from about 550 AD to nearly 1300 AD.  For some unknown reason, the inhabitants left around AD1300 and the dwellings are still intact.  Truly fascinating.

 

We left Mesa Verde about noon.  We were thinking of going to Vegas for a couple of nights on our way back to LA.  But after the miserable night of no sleep and insufferable heat, we decided we were ready to head back to our condo by the sea.  So we drove straight for 14 hours with two gas stops, and two bathroom stops. 

When we reached the CA border at 9:30 it was still 110 degrees!  When we reached Barstow at around 11 it was still over 100.  Of course, when we pulled into Malibu at about 1am, it was a balmy 65. I love our home. :-)

It was another great summer vacation for our family.  We’re already looking forward to next year where we plan to do the Pacific Coast…Redwoods, Crater Lake, Olympia, and Glacier National Parks.