Friday, July 21st, 2023

Starting mileage: 9641, Distance travelled: 381

Miles hiked: 2

We woke up to find a nursing deer right across from the camper van.

We made our final stop in Mesa Verde at the visitors center on the way out of the park. There was road construction right at the entrance so the sign was covered in plastic and inaccessible. David got the kids in front of the visitors center instead.

We had lots of driving to do so we got right on the road. We spent much of the day on a blue highway with varied terrain, including getting back up into higher mountain passes and crossing the great divide. We went through a couple of tunnels, including under another wildlife bridge like the one we saw earlier in the trip before heading into the mountains out west.

At David’s friend Erik’s suggestion, we made a spontaneous decision to visit Great Sand Dunes National Park which turned out to be only 20 minutes off our route, which worked out great because Brady had wanted to include the dunes in our trip. It was a lightning fast visit, including eating lunch in the van (because the picnic area was being renovated) and walking across the dryish creek bed to get to the base of the dunes to snap a few photos. We also got to witness some sand sledding and sand boarding. Although we got our passport stamp, a tour bus had just arrived when we got to the visitors center so we weren’t willing to wait in a half hour line to buy our stickers. We all agreed that it was worth the diversion and it might be fun to include the park in a future trip when we have time to try sledding. In addition to the unique inland sand dunes, the park also included other activities and ecosystems that we didn’t have time to explore.

Our destination was Colorado Springs and our ETA was about dinner time so Susan found a great little brewpub, Trail’s End Taproom and Craft Eatery. They had a unique system for serving beer, with a wall of taps attached to a card system that charged by the ounce, allowing us to try lots of different local brews. After dinner, we went to Garden of the Gods, a large city park surrounding stunning red rock formations. The sun was getting low in the sky, lighting up the peaks so our timing was perfect. David regaled us with stories of his rock-climbing youth, proceeding to attempt a climb on a rock formation, leaving Susan to wonder if he would be able to get down or if an ER trip was in our future.

When we got to the Garden of the Gods RV Resort right around the corner we found essentially a parking lot with hookups densely packed with giant RVs, but it had a pool and Laura and Susan went for a swim before bedtime. It served it’s purpose and was one of the few RV parks with functional wi-fi, much needed to catch up on our daily posts after two night with no cell service.