Dear Noah,
Today on our road trip Aidan and I played in a giant sand
box! It is called Great Sand Dunes
National Park. We got up at a
reasonable time and left Shelf Road where we had gone rock climbing and drove 4
hours until we made it to the tallest dunes in North America.
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| On the road |
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| Massaging my cramped neck |
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| Such a flat. straight. road. |
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| Great Sand Dunes National Park! |
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| Deer on the way in |
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| The dunes from afar... |
We thankfully managed to get a campsite (one of only a couple remaining) before we went out to explore in the sand. It reminded me of that time we played on the dunes in Oregon, however it was colder here and we had to climb up a lot higher. My neck was still hurting a little, so we decided to take it easy and just play around. We hiked up some, jumped off some, and ran down some! We had to cross an ephemeral (seasonal) river to get to the dunes. It was flowing pretty well! I tried to navigate my way through without getting my boots wet but I was unsuccessful. Aidan had better luck. Here are some pictures of our adventures.
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| The sign was buried... |
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| Navigating the river |
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| The jump. |
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| The landing. |
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| Aidan being super cute :) |
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| I found tumbleweed! |
Remember in Oregon when we jumped off the dunes and the sand
made a farting sound when we landed in it? The same thing happened here when Aidan and I ran down the
dunes. I got so much sand in my
boots. That is to be expected I
guess… When we got to the bottom
you could still see our tracks all the way up to the top.
The tallest dune in the park is called Star Dune (not to be
confused with High Dune, which is actually the second highest). We didn’t hike up to it because I
wasn’t feeling well, but we still enjoyed ourselves. All the sand is thought to have come from the bottom of a
lake in the basin that is all dried up now, and the winds blow in such a way
that all of the sand accumulates in this one little nook in the mountains.
As we were heading out of the dunes we saw a group of
families with lots of kids sledding down a dune on snow sleds. They were having a great time! Aidan and I got our book stamped at the
visitor center, and then took a fun little trail in the woods back to our
campsite.
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| Such a beautiful scene |
Back at camp we built a little fire using some logs left
over by the previous people and some tumble week I found blowing around. Considering our few resources, it
turned out really well! Aidan made
dinner by mixing a can of chicken fajita soup with a can of black beans and a bag
of frozen corn. We also made two
delicious s’mores over the campfire (most of which seemed to end up all over my
face and not necessarily in my mouth, which any good s’more will do!).
Us being old, we will go to bed relatively early tonight,
even though there is a camp full of kids running around next to us still having
a great time. I hope one day I can
come back here and explore with you!
You would have a great time!
Love you and miss you!
Your sis,
Emily
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