Great Sand Dunes National Park

On Wednesday we got going a little earlier and headed off to Colorado to visit the Great Sand Dunes National Park. This was definitely my favorite destination so far. We had explained to the kids that it was going to be somewhat like a really large sandbox, but of course they didn't really have a concept of what to expect. Of course, our first stop was at the Visitor's Center to pick up our Junior Ranger packets. That has become our thing to do at all the National Parks we get to visit. It is a great program and the kids have thoroughly enjoyed it. After looking over the booklets we set out on our first Junior Ranger task. The kids had fun playing Great Sand Dunes bingo and searching for various plants and wildlife that live in the park. After that task, we had a picnic lunch and then got to listen to Ranger Patrick talk about some of the hidden treasures at this national park. It is amazing what has been found over the years - mammoth teeth, Spanish jewelry, gold, and weapons to name a few. Ranger Patrick also pointed out some of the live hidden treasures. All the kids loved getting to see Sally, the Tiger Salamander. She is a type of salamander that lives in the sand dunes and buries themselves in the cool damp sand on their quest to find water.



After this interesting talk we headed off to the big sandbox! I commented to Meg on the way that I was pretty sure two of my kids would take off running in the sand. Sure enough, Trent and Paige hit the sand running and never looked back! In fact, they got so far ahead of everyone else that Jim had to go after them before they went over another sand hill and out of sight! We then had a refresher course of the Junior Ranger Rule #3: Never wander off. After that little reminder we all proceeded to rid ourselves of socks and shoes and explore the dunes. Zach Knight found a great "slide" for the kids to go down. It was about 40 feet from top to bottom and went almost straight down. The kids had a blast!


They slid down on their bottoms, on their stomachs, backwards, forwards, whatever way they could think of. My oldest three took to it like fish to water. Reese needed a little convincing so I ended up sliding with her. Whoo - did my legs ever get a workout helping her climb back up that steep slope! We let the kids play for quite a while before gathering for the obligatory family picture. We really didn't take too many pictures of this adventure because we didn't want sand in our camera. The wind was quite strong and sand was blowing a bit as you can see by looking at our family picture.




The Knights had a bit better luck in getting everyone to look at the camera. After our fun in the sand, we finished up all the Junior Ranger packets and then headed back to get our badges.


The kids have now completed four Junior Ranger packets and are starting quite the collection of badges from national parks. After being sworn in as certified Junior Rangers, we all packed up and prepared to head back to our campsite. Since it had been a long, full day, we decided to stop in Alamosa, CO on the way back to Chama for a nice sit-down dinner. We found a great little place there, enjoyed a relaxing dinner, and then headed back to our campers for a well-deserved night's sleep - after cleaning out lots of sand from our clothes and hair. Another fun day in our camping adventure!