The gunfight
the hill the boys climbed up, Josh did it barefoot
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Josh displaying his rodeo skills
damn, this is a high pass!
the payoff to the boys at the end of the hike
the 4x4 "unimproved" road to the steep dunes
dunes at sunset
just a monntain (before the big lightning storm that day)
it's really, really raining and thundering
the Colorado Gators
now how did you get this Winnebago here?
the UFO Landing zone:
more of the landing zone
All right, maybe it is the remoteness of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, but other phones using other carriers besides of AT&T have service which works just fine, so what’s up with the goobers at AT&T? And since I’m ranting – hey AT&T what’s up with sending me a text message at 2am in the morning telling me that I was using too freaking much bandwidth when I couldn’t send or retrieve email, use the interweb, or post any pictures.? Ohhh, sure you apologized later, but you dumdass’s if your service doesn’t work – quit complaining that I’m using too much data. Besides I bought the unlimited data plan that you charge me for each month – remember?
Our time in Red River was very relaxing. My nephews used their time to act like goofy young boys. We saw what had to be one of the cheesiest gunfights ever staged in history, watched Josh display his mechanical bull riding skills, and then went back to the condo where somehow the nephews got talked into hiking up to the snow making machine on the ski slope right outside our back door. The rules were few, just make it to the machine, climb the tower and jump up and down on the platform. $5 extra to pee of the platform. I shelled out $45 total.
The trip from Red River to the Sand Dunes NationaL Monument was pretty for about 25 miles, until we very, very abruptly left the mountains and reached the plains. It was a night and day difference between the plains and the mountains. Not too much of interest on the drive (almost 100 miles) outside of the picturesque little town San Luis, the oldest town in Colorado, and Fort Garland, an old fort and museum.
The sand dunes were great. Windy enough that every night when you went to bed you had to brush a vey fine layer of sand off your bedding. The campground was full by 1pm, so it’s a good thing that we got there early (by 9am, can you guess what time we left Red River that morning?). We attempted the ‘unimproved road’ to the steep sand dunes by mountain bike and soon learned why the road is marked as 4x4 only.
The 2nd day at the dunes I took a side trip to Gunnison, a nice round trip of about 400 miles. My original destination was the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, but between the lightening, the sheets of rain, once again I wussed out and came up short. I was soaked to the bone, even wearing my rain gear, and the amount of lightening I saw made what I experienced in New Mexico seem trivial. Thunder that lasted at least 30 seconds, seeing 3 lightening strikes his the ground almost simultaneously, and the sheer volume of rain was amazing. Highway 149 was beautiful, and crossing three 11,500foot tall mountain passes was a bit exciting.
The morning of Sunday July 26, we broke camp and headed north, for Mueller State Park, about thirty miles due east of Colorado Springs. The day broke very, very fair, with no visible clouds, and we had a nice stop at the Colorado Gator Farm, where they have over 300 alligators, some of which stay outside year ‘round! The farm is located on geothermal hot springs and was originally started at a tilapia fish farm and they just had the gators to take care of the entrails and such after the harvest. But it seems that there might be more money in exotic reptiles. I also stopped at the UFO landing station, which is a really, really hokey place with a funny alien garden, an odd observatory platform and a couple of (slightly eccentric?) owners. There wasn’t anyone about when I pulled up, buy soon enough an old lady in a golf cart came driving up ad asked me about my UFO observance history and when I explained that I had none, she proceeded to fill me in on hers. It seems that there had been reported UFO observances (and cattle mutilations she mentioned in a hushed voice) here in the valley since 1500, she had two vortexes to different dimensions in the alien garden and that she started this place in 1978. Funny coincidence, she had never had a UFO sighting herself until she opened this place. Hmmmm, marketing perhaps…………
And then the heavens opened up again and it rained. Never quite hard enough that I stopped to put on my rain gear, and there were occasional patches of blue. But overall, the last hour of the drive was pretty miserable. But the sun is now shining, the birds are singing and it’s just flat out beautiful here in the Colorado Rockies. Today 7/27 – Cripple Creek!
Our time in Red River was very relaxing. My nephews used their time to act like goofy young boys. We saw what had to be one of the cheesiest gunfights ever staged in history, watched Josh display his mechanical bull riding skills, and then went back to the condo where somehow the nephews got talked into hiking up to the snow making machine on the ski slope right outside our back door. The rules were few, just make it to the machine, climb the tower and jump up and down on the platform. $5 extra to pee of the platform. I shelled out $45 total.
The trip from Red River to the Sand Dunes NationaL Monument was pretty for about 25 miles, until we very, very abruptly left the mountains and reached the plains. It was a night and day difference between the plains and the mountains. Not too much of interest on the drive (almost 100 miles) outside of the picturesque little town San Luis, the oldest town in Colorado, and Fort Garland, an old fort and museum.
The sand dunes were great. Windy enough that every night when you went to bed you had to brush a vey fine layer of sand off your bedding. The campground was full by 1pm, so it’s a good thing that we got there early (by 9am, can you guess what time we left Red River that morning?). We attempted the ‘unimproved road’ to the steep sand dunes by mountain bike and soon learned why the road is marked as 4x4 only.
The 2nd day at the dunes I took a side trip to Gunnison, a nice round trip of about 400 miles. My original destination was the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, but between the lightening, the sheets of rain, once again I wussed out and came up short. I was soaked to the bone, even wearing my rain gear, and the amount of lightening I saw made what I experienced in New Mexico seem trivial. Thunder that lasted at least 30 seconds, seeing 3 lightening strikes his the ground almost simultaneously, and the sheer volume of rain was amazing. Highway 149 was beautiful, and crossing three 11,500foot tall mountain passes was a bit exciting.
The morning of Sunday July 26, we broke camp and headed north, for Mueller State Park, about thirty miles due east of Colorado Springs. The day broke very, very fair, with no visible clouds, and we had a nice stop at the Colorado Gator Farm, where they have over 300 alligators, some of which stay outside year ‘round! The farm is located on geothermal hot springs and was originally started at a tilapia fish farm and they just had the gators to take care of the entrails and such after the harvest. But it seems that there might be more money in exotic reptiles. I also stopped at the UFO landing station, which is a really, really hokey place with a funny alien garden, an odd observatory platform and a couple of (slightly eccentric?) owners. There wasn’t anyone about when I pulled up, buy soon enough an old lady in a golf cart came driving up ad asked me about my UFO observance history and when I explained that I had none, she proceeded to fill me in on hers. It seems that there had been reported UFO observances (and cattle mutilations she mentioned in a hushed voice) here in the valley since 1500, she had two vortexes to different dimensions in the alien garden and that she started this place in 1978. Funny coincidence, she had never had a UFO sighting herself until she opened this place. Hmmmm, marketing perhaps…………
And then the heavens opened up again and it rained. Never quite hard enough that I stopped to put on my rain gear, and there were occasional patches of blue. But overall, the last hour of the drive was pretty miserable. But the sun is now shining, the birds are singing and it’s just flat out beautiful here in the Colorado Rockies. Today 7/27 – Cripple Creek!
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