Camping in the dunes!
I convinced hubby to spend the weekend at the Grand Sand Dunes National Park – south of Pueblo. It was a really amazing time! To see these giant piles of sand gently sitting in front of Giant Mountains is just awe inspiring!
We got a pretty good start on Friday – 2pm – but still not early enough to get a site within the park. But there was the Oasis Campground – 133 sites – so we had a place to camp!
Our first sight was an amazing view, but hubby didn’t like the amount of bugs so we move along! We found another location – about as far from the rest room as possible!
We enjoyed a beer and a great campfire! Hot links, chips and salsa, and s’mores! Yeah!
The next morning we got up early. Hubby’s allergies were killing him! So we made the dunes by 7:30am!! We headed up!! It was amazing! It was harder than heck to walk on!!
Seeing the different dunes, and edges, and wave patterns wasjust simply amazing!! We saw a couple little creatures – just crazy that theycan survive in this environment!
We trudged up and up and up the dunes! I was determined to make the summit, hubby was less than thrilled! At one point we took a break to get our breath under control so that something besides our heartbeat could be heard! At that point I said I’d give it 1 more hour and then we could bag it – that was 8am! We made the summit at 8:55! Whew! True to my word!
There were amazing views from the top, all around the sand dunes and mountains and the river! A really great place!
We got down in just over 30 minutes. I was lots of fun “running” down the fronts of the dunes! My left shoe filled with a ton of sand, by the time I hit the bottom my left side was 1 inch taller than my right! Hubby gave up on the whole shoe boon doggle and went barefoot! Some of the sand was a bit hot for hubby’s feet, so he would run quicker and then dig in to find the cooler sand! J
After our jaunt to the top we headed back to the camp site for “lunch” and a nice nap!
It was HOT! We have discovered that we need a “cover” for our tent!!
That afternoon we headed back to the “river” to cool off! Having been there at 7:30am we never imagined that it would be “packed”. We had to park pretty far away and carry our stuff in! We were amazed by the amount of stuff that was on the river! Popups, coolers, chairs, toys, tubes, and more! It was like Lake Havasu in California! Ghetto Fabulous!
This is what it looked like at 8am: 
We chilled in the water, with the breeze for an hour or so! It was really refreshing!
We attempted a hike to an overlook to check out the dunes from afar, but the bugs were biting and the rain was threatening!
We spent our last evening chilling by the fire, drinkingsome wine and eating burgers!
One of our camping neighbors stopped by to chat. And the best line of the evening was:
"If you live in boulder and are not a triathlon you are shunned"
I'm still laughing about that line!
If you get a chance – take in the sights at the dunes!
