Great Sand Dunes NP, CO

Next, we continued our journey another hour down the road to Great Sand Dunes National Park. As its name suggests, the park is an ever-changing scape of dunes. The unique feature of this park is the ability to rent sandboards and sand-sleds from a variety of local vendors to ride down the dunes. Really?! Yep! We picked up our rentals at Oasis Store just outside the national park’s entrance, then parked behind the visitor center to try out sandboarding and sledding. We have sled on snow in Tennessee, but this is our first time on sand! It’s very similar. None of us have ever snowboarded before though. Neil did the best of our group, but we all had our turns wiping out down the dunes. Let’s just say, it’s harder than it looks! LOL! Little did we know, but visiting this national park during October is a fantastic time since the sand on the dunes can reach over 60 degrees hotter than air temperature (thus reaching 150 degrees during the hottest months---yikes!).

Afterwards, we grabbed a quick stamp at the temporary visitor center (the main building was under construction) and then went to a small diner-style Mexican restaurant named, Lu’s Main Street Café, for dinner before driving the 2 hours back to our campground.

Day #88 (October 27. 2022): After 3 long, full days of adventures, we were ready for a break. Chris caught up on some work, while Emily and the kids did some school together before taking Mac to the vet for bacterial conjunctivitis in Colorado Springs. The kids enjoyed going into the vet’s office to see what it was like for a dog to go to the doctor. Since Mac was a COVID pup, all our vet visits in Brentwood have been curbside pickup/drop-off, which is super convenient for Mama, but not as exciting for the kids. Bethany, an aspiring future vet tech, loved getting to see her dream job in action. In her mind, today confirmed her longstanding answer for as long as she can remember to the question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” A vet (tech)!