Onward to the Great Sand Dunes!

We left Colorado Springs and headed to the Great Sand Dunes National Park.  This is a place that we've heard and read a lot about and were looking forward to visiting.  As we were driving through, we drove through Pueblo we were able to take in the views of the San Isabel National Forest.  We turned up Route 160 and headed for The Great Sand Dunes.  They  are located at the base of Sangre De Cristo Mountains.  The story is that a dying priest looked up and saw that the mountains appeared to have a red coloring to them in the light.  The name is translated "The Blood of Christ".  

Here is the view as were were driving towards them:

They grey are the sand dunes with the Sangre De Christo Mountains in the background.

You can see the sand dunes a little clearer.

Once we got inside, we knew we couldn't do much 4-wheel driving on the primitive roads in the 'ol RV, so we decided to hit Medano Creek, which flows out of the Mountains and along the sand, take a short hike into the main dunes and take on the Junior Ranger Program with the kids (big hit!).

Medano Creek was a lot of fun.  The kids were treating it like it was a pool.  The water was pretty low, but because of the sandy bottom, there were places there it had enough depth were they were able to jump in and make some big splashes!  Almost like we were on a Royer Vacation at Folly Beach (almost ...)

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We set out to hike into the main sand dune field.  The contrast between the creek and the dunes was pretty awesome!  There were kids sand-boarding and sledding down them with wooden boards making sure the bottoms were thoroughly waxed.  Our kids thought it would be a good idea to try to sled down on their bottoms.  They quickly realized that they couldn't get very far and ended up with suits full of sand!

The kids successfully completed their Junior Ranger program to earn their first badge, Paul forgot his new hiking boots in the parking lot and we were on our way to Mesa Verde to visit the ancestral home of the Ancient Puebloians.