Road Trip Day 9 & 10: From New Mexico to Southern Colorado - So Many National Parks, So Little Time

There was a broken quarter piece of a rainbow shining down on our campground. I decided that was an excellent sign. Who wants a fancy-pants whole rainbow anyway?

We spotted it when we were a few miles away, as we made our way down a long road surrounded by a few miles of brush. One lone little house was sitting out in the middle of that brush staring out at us like someone’s stubborn grandma muttering things like these young people and their new-fangled automobiles. The mountains sat proudly next to our destination at the end of this road, as very large signs pointing out where we were supposed to end up.

“There’s the sand dunes,” my husband gestured to the left, and there they were. They looked like a little piece of the Sahara Desert. I had read this place was a hotspot for alien activity. I decided that the aliens had probably scooped up some impressive dunes in the Sahara and dropped them off there in Southern Colorado just for kicks. But more about alien activity later. They certainly looked alien sitting there in the line of sight of some huge blue mountains with snowy peaks.

We made it to our campsite as the sun was close to setting, and as I decided that maybe the rainbow was not an excellent sign after all—maybe it was actually a sign that there was going to be very cold mist and a very dreary set of rainclouds that would clog up the sky while we scrambled to get our tent set up. Maybe.

Maybe because the mist lasted only about ten minutes. We have had freakishly good luck with weather on this road trip.

The husband began starting the fire while I was coaxing the children into wearing socks. It is going to be 36 degrees tonight. Just trust me, you want socks. I have birthed stubborn little croc wearing children that hadn’t ever camped in anything below 47.

When the mist passed, the sun seemed to shout out a farewell by way of sending screaming beams through the cloud cracks. The view from our campsite to the dunes was full of brush reminiscent of the African savannah. On my mental bucket list I put a checkmark next to Visit Africa. Done.

The campsites at Great Sand Dunes National Park are not large, and are not very far apart, but what they lack in cozy woodsy privacy, they make up for with a lovely view. Behind our campsite there was a trail leading through the African savannah to the dunes, and it beckoned to my son with its shifting grass and the sense of adventure hidden within. I had a vision of Simba from the Lion King crouching in that grass. Although in this instance it would have to be Simba, the mountain lion.

The sun set and the moon at first quarter blasted down light onto the dunes. I went to sleep soon after, because we had already had a big day at Bandelier National Monument on our way from Albuquerque.

Bandelier

It is an odd drive from Albuquerque to Bandelier, because if you had asked me where we were, I would probably have guessed somewhere farther north. Oregon, Washington maybe? But there in Northern New Mexico were lots of beautiful tall pines and fir trees, bright yellow aspens, and stretches of beautiful yellow grass swishing in the breeze.

We were told at the entrance gate that we would be allowed to drive down to the visitor’s center because we have children, rather than having to take the shuttle bus. This felt like some sort of special gold star I received for all the whining and squabbling a mother must tolerate from a 9 and 6 year old. I wore my invisible gold star proudly down the road until we arrived in the parking lot and it looked like everyone else had received the same reward. That lady at the front gate passes out a lot of gold stars.

After a short trail we reached the Pueblo cliff dwellings, which are the belle of the ball at Bandelier. As we went up the thin passageway cut into the side of the mountain we were met by a couple of grouchy old people, who were annoyed we were going the opposite direction as them. There weren’t any One Way signs; the place appears to be a free-for-all so long as you aren’t holding a spray paint can, but I can’t blame them too much. It isn’t easy walking through a steep narrow stone passage with your seventy-five-year-old knees and you seventy-five-year-old grouchies.

One of the neat, and somewhat surprising things, is that visitors are permitted to climb the ladders and enter the cliff dwellings. The six-year-old quickly realized her short legs at the top of the ten-foot ladder had put her out of her element. My husband had to talk her down, step by step, foot placement by foot placement, as a pleasantly not grouchy old man cheered her on at the base.

We traversed them all, inhaled some beautiful air, attempted to identify a few plants, and off we went, because there is so little time and way too many cool things to explore in America’s West.

The Next Morning

We all awoke to a chilly dawn, but warming fast—as fast as the sun was rising above the mountains and casting a gold glow over the sand dunes. We headed that direction with an oversized roll of rope from the camping bin shoved in my bag, along with a large piece of cardboard scavenged from my father-in-law’s garage back in Albuquerque.

Just prior to this, both my phone and my son’s tablet crashed. They were both fully charged, and both would not turn back on for about ten minutes. I immediately blamed the aliens. Sneaky, invisible aliens. But where was I…

In order to reach the dunes we first had to cross a shallow creek running in confused rivulets about twenty feet wide. I met a man from Iowa as we crossed it. He pointed to his friend that was tiptoeing like a ballerina through the half-inch deep water.

“That’s his only pair of shoes—we lost most of our gear at the Green River. Flash flood. Road collapsed. Our gear still isn’t accessible—probably going to have to pay to have it shipped home.”

“Sounds like a serious adventure,” I said optimistically.

He laughed hollowly. “Yeah. Something like that.”

We parted ways as he began the adult hike in the direction of the tallest dune. We with children in tow aimed for one of the medium-sized ones. We mounted it and the husband began construction with pocket knife in hand.

“Let me show you how this is done,” the husband said to the boy while grasping the newly completed rope handles of our cardboard sled. He walked as far back on our little sand mountain as he could, then made a run for it, and slid elegantly down the dune about three-quarters of the way before he turned sideways and stopped dead. It should be of note that he said something similar when we were leaving the dunes, but the result was significantly less elegant. He intertwines goofy and elegant together as nicely as the threads in the rope in my purse.

The boy only managed to make it about a quarter of the way down the dune, and after a lot of technique tweaking it was determined that he did not have enough body weight to ride our little cardboard Porshe properly. It didn’t matter though, because a quarter of the way was still a ride, and running back up that dune while your feet sink into the sand burns a lot of energy.

Afterward we gave away our little homemade Carrera to a European guy with a friendly disposition. He did that thing that nice foreign people do where they get right up in your personal space, and us contact-phobic Americans politely inched away. Despite not wanting to be able to count his nose hairs, he was very pleasant and I hope our sled showed him a good time.

When we drove away the sand dunes remained visible for quite a while. They beckoned to me like that grassy trail beckoned to my son. But there was no time for persuasive sand dunes. There were new mountains in the distance doing their own beckoning.

Besides, we brought quite a bit of sand dune with us in our shoes.