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.