As much as we love our mountain home and have appreciated its safe locale…….GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!!!

We had to cancel so many trips this past year….we were really itching to go somewhere. So we packed up our new travel trailer and headed out. Traveling is not as easy as it used to be…maybe it is our age, maybe the whole Covid thing, maybe we are just out of practice. But…here we go!

The adventure started in the driveway. Between the angle of the driveway, the narrowness of the driveway, the huge snow pile right across from the driveway…well let’s just say that it took over 3 hours and a bobcat to get us out of our driveway!! Oh yea, I have a rock wall to rebuild when I get home, too!!

Feels like we are doing something wrong! We are both vaccinated and are now out and about and on the road and it feels great and a little sinful!! It has been so long.

We stayed our first night at the Apple Valley Cider Company in Penrose. They are part of Harvest Hosts. This is an organization of 2200 places like wineries, farms, breweries, etc. (and growing every month) where you can park your RV for a night free of charge. Of course, they would love you to come in and buy something. So we did and I really liked their cider and made it worth the owners while! We topped off WAAAAYYYYY too many ciders with blistered shisito peppers and gorgonzola pasta from the restaurant next door.. It rained all night…that was a lovely sound to lull us to sleep. (Buzz dreamt that the trailer floated away!)

On to Alamosa, Colorado…only a few hours down the road and pretty easy driving (according to Buzz….Ms. Chicken has not tried it yet!) Our home there was a KOA campground with a nice patio and  grill and firepit. We were situated at the park so we had a great place to throw the ball for Sprocket.

I think Sprocket likes camping and we know she loves hiking. And she absolutely loved the Great Sand Dunes National Park. The melting snow creates Medano Creek for a month or so and we were lucky enough to see it. It is only a couple of inches deep but Sprocket ran around and played and just wagged her tail the whole time! (WordPress no longer supports videos so check out Facebook for a video of Sprocket playing in Medano Creek.)

Next we explored the Great Sand Dunes National Park. What a cool place! A little chilly but the sun made a valiant attempt to warm our backs. The Medano Creek was running, though only a couple of inches deep. Having to wade across the stream was not too cold because the water was so shallow.

Such a very cool scene, the dunes fronting the Sangre de Cristo mountain range.

The sheer scale of the dunes is much more visible here. These things are humongous!

Buzz for scale! The tallest dune in North America is here and it measure 755 from the base to the crest.