Friends Revisited

We shared Easter dinner with Bob and Patty in Guadalupe National Park at the beginning of our journey.  Having invited us to visit them when we passed through, we checked in as we got close.  Hearing we were nearby, Patty enthusiastically invited us to stay with them and we just didn’t have a reason to say no.  And so began a fun time with new friends!

Leaving Mesa Verde, we headed for Durango, a town we both enjoyed in our years living in Colorado.  Not due in Vallecito Lake until mid-afternoon, we wandered Durango for the next few hours.  We found parking by the river and walked into town for a latte, catching up on phone calls and being a tourist (I think that was a first on this trip!)

Vallecito Lake is 10 miles or so up in the mountains from Durango and the drive was beautiful.  Bob and Patty live in a welcoming (and gorgeous) home in a charming community at the top of the lake and had a big driveway waiting for the RV.  We settled in quickly and wasted no time sampling some beer!  But the agenda had us visiting some local haunts where we met the local “color” and experienced a few favorite happy hour spots.  Patty graciously had ribs in the slow cooker so back to the house we went for the evening.

Waking up early the next morning, Rob and I headed for the Lake Eileen trailhead.  A three mile hike up the mountain took us through pine and aspen forests to a beautiful mountain lake filled with lilies.  The trail up had more wildflowers than I’ve seen to date and Rob had a hard time keeping me moving for all my gawking and picture taking.  A personal flower favorite of mine has always been the Colorado columbine and I found one unlike any I’ve seen before – a special treat!

Returning to the house, we packed up lunches and headed up to Middle Mountain for a picnic.  High up a steep road, we wound our way on 4 wheel drive paths and ended up with views in all directions, something we’ve had a hard time doing with only an RV for transport!   Patty had invited neighbors over for the evening so we didn’t stay long and made our way back down the mountain to get ready.

The evening was such fun!  With several neighbors and friends, we shared great food, stories and BEER and came away with yet more people to add to the list of friends!  Moving from the large deck and all the food, Bob lit a fire and we wiled away hours as the stars came out in all their mountain glory.  Saying goodbye this morning, we were back on the road with the next park in our sights.  

Great Sand Dunes National Park was a good drive with a 10,550’ mountain pass along the way.  Good ole’ Moonshadow did a great job!  We pulled into the park just after noon and went straight to the campground.  OH NO – our first disappointment so far!  No sites available – I guess the season really is upon us!

Not deterred, we proceeded straight to the dune field to experience what the park had to offer.  Another amazing landscape, with massive (700’ plus) sanddunes stretching for miles and the Sangre de Christo mountains rising on one side with a long mountain valley on the other.  The Medano Creek ran around the dune field to the delight of literally countless children – and adults for that matter – playing in the water and sand.

Of course we had to go conquer the sand dunes so we filled the water bottles and headed out.  With near constant winds and the massive dunes, the going was SO much harder than we expected!  Rob was determined to wear his sandals even when I returned to don my tennis shoes to protect against the hot sand.  But onward we went – up and up and up. 

Trudging our way one slow step at a time, we made it to the top of the first tier of dunes.   After meeting a group of fun-lovers from Orlando getting ready to body board down the slopes, we took off …no better way to get down but to run, right?  I swear it felt like flying as we barreled down the dunes!  Such fun!

Without a campsite and with Rob’s now sore feet, we gave up on any more hiking for the day and started the final journey toward the foothills where we will reunite with our son, Jacob, in Palmer Lake where he moved the day before we left on our adventure.  As the night falls around us in our roadside campsite with the Arkansas River a serenade, we mark the halfway point of our journey.  So much seen and much more to come.