Originally, we had planned to run about 91 miles down to New Mexico to see the Capulin Volcano NM, and the town of Trinidad. One of our neighbors was walking by and mentioned that the weather tomorrow is supposed to be fairly bad, raining and such, and that the Dunes park wasn't a good visit in the rain.
Fair enough, so we switched- with a backup plan in case we loose tomorrow- we had planned to rest Monday so we can switch that also.
So, for today, we did about 190 miles round trip, and got to the following:
Fort Garland, a typical fort of the Western settlement times, said to have been slept in by Kit Carson....
The Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, which counts as a 2 park visit since it has the dual designation...
Then, the city of Alamosa, Colorado, where my step mother Helen was born, best I remember, back in 1912 or so.
Fort Garland-
This is an old adobe fort, had a nice gift shop, but no pins, or magnets either!
Interesting history to the place, here's the Wiki site for it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Garland
After a brief visit, we headed 34 miles down the road, a beautiful drive alongside the Rockies, to Great Sand Dune NP and NPreserve.
Bette had never been to Colorado, and you just can't properly describe what you see here.... this was on the way to the Dunes.. These are two of the Colorado "fourteeners" Mt Lindsay on the right at 14,125 feet, and Mt Blanca on the left at 14,345 feet. Awesome, sure enough....
Great Sand Dunes lives up to its name, it was formed over the years because the mountain range blocks the sand as it travels across the plains, and the result is several miles of beautiful dunes, as you can see from the picture below. It was threatening rain and a little windy, so we just did the visitor's center and got 4 stamps, and a very nice pin.
It was about 1230 by this time, and we toyed with the idea of going ahead to New Mexico, but the weather really started to turn grey, so we decided just to go over to Alamosa, which was the original plan....
Alamosa is an old Rail Road town, and is where my stepmother Helen was born
There is a small downtown, and we found a very nice local spot to have a quick lunch, called Milagros' Coffee House... it was a very health food vegan type bakery/restaurant, and had a small bookstore of used books, and a bank of computers for folks to use.. very cosmopolitan for Alamosa...
Bette had a terrific home made soup, ham and rice, and I had a veggie wrap... terrific also!
From there, we ran over to the Rio Grande Senic Rail Road depot, so I could get a pin and a present for my neighbor Ralph....
Then, a quick stop over to the San Luis Valley Museum, but no pin..... nice exhibits about the county's history... $2.00 admission...
Last stop of the day was Adams State College, home of the Grizzlies, who play in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference... last year they were 5-6 in football. Managed to get a pin at the bookstore, which was open because today was graduation!
As I write this, we are having a few sprinkles of rain....
This chart was about an hour old, and we are getting the showers.. we actually ran into a brief amount of snow flurries as we came over the 9400 foot mountain pass on the way home.....
Here's what the radar looks like:
We're about 40 miles west of Alamosa on the map... If you look closely, you can see a hint of whitish purple in the green, which is snow, flurries, or sleet.. not supposed to be quite as cold tonight as it was last night.
Tommorrow's schedule is dependent on the weather... may rest, may not.....
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