National Park #6 (Great Sand Dunes)

Well Saturday morning, June 30th, all the families packed up and headed out but not before taking the required "4-year-old" picture.  David was born on January 14th, Leighton on the 20th, Grant on the 25th and John on the 29th.

Then we tried to throw in the other kids - Mary Louisa, Georgia (not pictured) Ryan and Rob.

We hit the road in the minivan and drove about three hours to our sixth national park, Great Sand Dunes!

We first stopped inside the park to have a picnic lunch made up of leftovers from the fridge at the house. Then we set out to hike up at least one of the dunes - these are the largest sand dunes in North America. 

Ryan, as always on this trip, was a trooper.  She was very determined to get to the top of one of the smaller dunes.  But it was pretty hard work walking through the sand.

Grant was such a complainer but in his defense the sand was extremely hot - apparently it can reach up to 140 degrees! 

 When we finished our hike, we changed out of our sandy and hot tennis shoes, went back to the visitor center, purchased the mandatory hat pins and magnets, got the mandatory stamps for the passbooks and explored the center a little bit.  It was very educational - lots of facts about dunes, wind, lightning, wildlife, etc.  We took a family snapshot then headed south.

Our next adventure was Zapata Falls.  I had read about this on the Great Sand Dunes website.  It's not part of the park but is a few miles south and 3.5 miles east on a dirt road.  Nick tore it up in the minivan and the kids thought the drive was a blast.  Another cool thing was that as we drove up the road, we could look back behind us on vast farmland and when looking at it we saw 15-20 mini sand tornadoes.  It was cool.

We hiked a 1/2 mile up a rocky trail (Grant complained but not as much), then we hike through a freezing mountain stream back into a cavernous part of a mountain where there was a 30 ft. hidden waterfall.

While this certainly wasn't the most strenuous thing I'd ever done, it was very near the kids' physical limit and they had a blast.  They were so proud of making it all the way back - it felt like such a daring adventure to them.  Awesome!!

After this we headed for home.  We drove from the Dunes to Raton, New Mexico where we had dinner at K-Bobs.  Then we drove a little farther to Dalhart, TX, where we stayed the night in a dumpy motel.  We ate breakfast at the hotel in a dumpy room next to a narcoleptic man and a bunch of flies, then kept on, stopping in Somewhere, TX for an obligatory Dairy Queen meal. 

We got back to the airport and turned in the car, in the rain and five ours late.  That only cost an extra $250 - ouch, but totally worth it. 

It was a great trip with great friends.

National Park #5 (Black Canyon of the Gunnison)

Well, this was an unscheduled visit to a national park.  My friends from college, Mary, Erin & Carrie, and their families meet us somewhere every 4th of July (Fossil Rim, Rockport, Canyon Lake).  This year we decided to spend a week in Crested Butte.  It was amazing but also very near to two national parks so we incorporated some visits into our vacation.  The kids and I flew to Denver on Sunday the 24th then drove to CB in an awesome minivan.  The trip getting up there was amazingly perfect. 

Monday we drove over (west) to Lake Irwin and the kids fished and explored. 

That night we went to a concert at the city park/playground but Grant, Ryan and I had to leave early because Grant clawed Ryan's chest with his ungroomed finger nails.  About a month after letting our nanny go, I realized one thing she frequently did was trim Grant's finger nails!





Tuesday we drove north to Peanut Lake and went on a nature hike and tried to make boats out of leaves and sail them.  We strolled through town, bought toys and ice cream (with Rob & John Fulgham) , and played forever in the creek right next to the house.

That afternoon we had a marathon Skip Bo tournament with plenty of sangria involved.  The game was so long that we got both tipsy and hung over within the same game.

Wednesday we played at the city park playground and watched a bunch of kids in a daycamp shoot off rockets.  Then we drove to Gunnison and picked Nick up from the airport.  We ate sandwiches at Firebrandt's in Gunnison then headed back to the house.

Thursday the four of us drove to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park #5!!  The drive there was beautiful and the kids finally embraced the "I'm thinking of Something" game.  Ryan mastered it but Grant struggled a bit - Mom: Is it alive?  Grant: No....several questions later...Mom: Is it our hamster?  Grant: YES!

The canyon was awesome. We had a picnic lunch at the visitor center, played with a chipmunk, then drove through the park, stopping at some of the more beautiful lookout points.  Afterwards we drove down into the canyon and that was also spectacular.  Great park!

Chipmunk!



Friday was my favorite day of the trip.  We drove up to Mt. Crested Butte and rode the ski lift to the top of the mountain.  Then we started our hike to the summit.  Grant fell about 3/4 of the way up and decided he did not want to go any farther but Ryan was a trooper and was more determined than I've ever seen her.  She and I went to the top with Rob, Erin, Richard and David.  It was amazing!  Look at her on top of the world.  She was so proud of herself.

It was so amazing that I came down and Nick went up to see it.  Ryan was still coming down but when she saw Nick she turned around and summited again and this time, they saw a marmot!

Grant was very upset that he didn't do it but such is life.  We rode the lift back down and ate lunch.

Then the kids got to play putt-putt at a nice, covered course so the grownups just relaxed for a bit.  But the next adventure was the bungie/trampoline contraption that Grant was all over and that I finally got Ryan to try right before we headed back to the house.  Check this out!





After we got back to the house, it started to rain and we saw, literally the most unbelievable rainbow I have ever seen.  It almost made me cry.