San Luis Valley with the Girls

On Tuesday Sandi and the girls went shopping to get ready for the trip.  They also went to the Pearl street mall, and watched Daredevil Dan the juggler, as well as the Rubber Band man.

On Wednesday morning, Richard hitched up the camper, and we all got into the truck.  The drive was uneventful.  The girls kept asking how much longer, and Richard gave them random times, like 9 hours or 17 hours.

We finally did arrive at San Luis Lakes State Wildlife area.  This used to be a state park, so there was electricity at our campsite, which was nice.   The campground was relatively empty, so quiet.

Once we got the camper set up, we headed for Great Sand Dunes National Park.   The water in the creek was surging, a rare phenomena involving the sand building up, and then breaking loose producing a surge of water.  Richard had never seen that much water, nor had he seen the surges.   The girls played in the water and had a great time.

On Thursday morning, we ate breakfast and headed over to the Park, hoping to find someone leaving their campsite, so we could move to the National Park.  However the situation was very competitive, and all the campsites had been claimed by 8 AM.  We went to the "beach" and walked upstream, away from the crowd.  The girls made sand castles.  After a couple of hours in the water, we were wet and cold, so we headed back to the camper to eat, rest, and read.   After dinner, we drove back to the park, intending to hike on the dunes, but the weather was threatening.  We decided to drive on the Medano Pass road, a four wheel drive road paralleling the creek.

We stopped to walk across the creek and climb a very steep sand slope.  Climbing uphill in soft sand was a lot of work, especially for Richard.  We drove a little further up the road, only to get stuck in the soft sand.  The next truck gave us a tow out of the hole that the rear tires had dug.  The folks in the truck said that the front wheels were not driving, which is why we got stuck.  Richard guessed that the automatic hubs were not engaging, so he engaged the hubs manually.  It was obvious that the truck was pulling better through the sand, so that had been a problem the whole time.  We headed back to the paved road, and saw a spectacular sunset over the dunes.

On Friday we had reserved a Bison Tour at the Nature Conservancy's Zapata Ranch.   However, K. had a bad night with stomach problems.  But K. is a trooper, and went on the tour, even though she felt bad.   The tour was quite excellent.  Gwin was an intern with Ranchways, which runs the ranch for the Nature Conservancy.  She drove us to the Medano part of the ranch, near the Sand Dunes.  They run 2000 head of Bison.  This is really an unmanaged herd; they are free to wander anywhere on the ranch.  Once a year they round them up for vaccination, and to get an accurate count.  If there are more than 2000 bison, they send them to another ranch, or to the slaughterhouse.  They estimate that the ranch can handle 2000 bison, but no more.   We must have seen more than 500 bison, in several herds.  We saw the system of pens which are used for the annual roundup, with a design based on Temple Grandin's work.

K. was unable to eat, and could not keep any fluids down, so we ended up taking her to the emergency room in Alamosa.  Everyone there was very nice, including the physician's assistant.  They did some tests, gave her some pills, and made sure that she could keep things down.  Since K's mom is a nurse, we had her on the speakerphone some, but she was satisfied.

On Saturday morning, K. got up, and felt normal.  We were all relieved.   We headed for the National Park to play a bit more in the water, but ran into a long line before we got to the entrance gate.  The line was not really moving.  We decided to turn around, and head for the UFO observatory, which was a hoot.  The place is a repository of offerings and junk from all over, and reportedly has two vortexes.   It was a fun stop.

Then we headed for the KOA campground, which met with approval from Sandi and the girls.  They liked being able to take longer showers, and spent some time at the pool.  It was good to be able to fill the RV tank with fresh water.   We enjoyed the Saturday night Spanish language mass in Alamosa.  The people were very welcoming.

Sunday we drove to Antonito to ride the train.  The Cumbres and Toltec steam railroad is a narrow gauge line from Antonito Colorado to Chama New Mexico.  The girls had never ridden a train.  The train had relatively few passengers, including some rail fans.

The engineer let the girls get up in the engine for a photo; after that, one of the rail fans did the same things, with Sandi taking his photo.

The train has a snack car, including hard liquor.  The docent was very knowledgeable, obviously a rail fan.  The ride is pretty slow; the fastest speed that we measured with a gps was 12 mph.  The train starts on relatively flat terrain, and then heads gradually uphill, on a 1.4 percent grade.  

We stopped at Osier for a buffet lunch, and then later at the top of Cumbres Pass.   On the way down the 4 percent grade, the brakes were squealing.  Towards the bottom, the train repeatedly stopped abruptly, in something called a "dynamite."  This was a malfunction of the brake system on one car, which caused all the brakes on the train to apply.  They eventually were able to isolate the problem, and we arrived in Chalma about one hour late.

We took the bus back to Antonito, where we had dinner at the Dos Hermanos restaurant.

On Monday, we were on the road about 9:30 AM, stopped in Fairplay for lunch, and arrived home at 3 PM.

All in all, a good trip, and a good time was had by all.  The girls said that they would do another trip with us next year.