Great Sand Dunes Rock

Candy: Today we drove to the Great Sand Dunes National Monument & Preserve. It's about two hours southwest of Pueblo, near Alamosa, Colorado, and we saw some really amazing things.

On the way to the dunes we looked to our left on Highway 160 and saw some rocky outcroppings that looked a bit like a "great wall." So we took the next left and drove through La Veta, Colorado, and drove right by several of the unusual rocks. We're still not sure whether they have an official name, but to us they are the "great wall of Colorado."
The dunes are, of course, very sandy, with about 6-8 inches of soft sand on the surface. It was a real workout just to walk from the parking lot to the edge of the dunes, which is about 3/4 of a mile. It was also fairly windy, which increased my concern of getting sand in the camera, so I didn't take as many photos as I would have liked. There are 30 miles of dunes and two of them stand taller than 650 feet.

We arrived at the park around 6pm and were able to enjoy the wonderful light at dusk and the fabulous shadows created by the slanting rays. It was gorgeous, and this is my favorite shot from today.
When we returned to the El, we both had tons of sand in our shoes, as you might imagine. We didn't see as much wildlife as we had hoped to, but we did come across several deer, a couple of elk, and what we're pretty sure was a coyote running across the highway.

On the way back to Pueblo tonight, the pastel tones that hit the mountains from the sunset were astonishing. The mountains truly looked purple. We were oohing and ahhing all the way home.

It's supposed to hit 101 in the next day or two, so I expect we'll be hanging out at the pool a bit more, along with all the other apartment dwellers.

Oh, I almost forgot. Tim had a phone interview this afternoon with a charter school in the Denver area. They want to bring him to campus yet this month and although it's not exactly what he's looking for, it was encouraging for him to get a bite. Perhaps it'll start to roll now.

Enjoy your week and let us know how you're doing.