By Shelby
We had a very adventurous week. After working from the vacation rental in Pagosa Springs Monday, we made a big dinner, taking advantage of the stove and oven. We made Greek roasted chicken and potatoes, garlic butter salmon with lemon asparagus, and chocolate chip cookies. I thought it was all very good.
Before we left Pagosa Springs, we made a quick stop at the San Juan River to see the hot springs Pagosa Springs is known for. It looked nice, but it smelled like sulfur. The water was very steamy.
After leaving Pagosa Springs, we crossed the Continental Divide at the Wolf Creek Pass. The mountains were nice, but they weren’t as impressive as they had been in Telluride. Thankfully the weather was once again good for driving in the mountains.
Our next stop was Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. As we drove closer to the park, we could see a long ridge of snow covered mountains. It looked pretty impressive. After getting to the park, we ate a quick lunch before going out into the dunes.
We hiked up to High Dune, an almost 700 foot tall sand dune. We saw lots of people in the smaller sand dunes closer to the parking lot. Quite a few people were sledding down the dunes. Once we got higher up, it got less crowded. It was cold and windy but at least it was sunny.
It was pretty difficult to climb up the dunes. It was steep and for every step we took, we slid back half a step. The views from the top were nice. We could see the snowy mountains in the distance past the sand.
After reaching High Dune, we headed back down. We ran down a steep slope of a dune into a bowl shaped area. My shoes rubbing against the gravelly sand echoed loudly in the bowl. It was pretty weird. It sounded like an airplane or loud car.
After returning to the car and dumping the sand out of our shoes, we got back on the road. Our next stop was R.E.I. in Colorado Springs. We needed to buy winter gloves for skiing Wednesday. After buying gloves, we ate dinner in the parking lot. Then we drove on to Planet Fitness in Denver.
Wednesday morning, we got up early and headed out to Loveland Ski Area on the Continental Divide. We got there right as the rental shop opened. We got our skis and equipment pretty quickly. We went to the shop and bought hats and cheaper gloves, so we decided to return the other gloves to R.E.I.
I was intimidated by the more difficult basin area of the ski area, so we took the free shuttle to the easier valley area. We spent a couple hours skiing there before returning to the basin area.
Spencer and I did an easy run together before splitting up. He took the lift up to the very top of the Continental Divide and skied down. It was too advanced for me, so I stuck to the easier slope. The lines for the lifts were pretty much non-existent, which was great. It was also interesting that we heard explosives going off in the distance to cause avalanches.
We met up again and went up a lift to one of the warming lodges at 12,000 feet. The lodge had a great view of the mountains. The ride back down to the base of the mountain at 10,800 feet was really cool. It was above the treeline, so there was just snow everywhere and you could ski wherever you wanted. We took the easy route down. It was a lot of fun. The lifts were about to close, so that was our last run of the day.
Since we were right next to the Eisenhower-Johnson Tunnels that went under the Continental Divide, we decided to drive through just for fun. The tunnel is the highest point on the interstate highway system at over 11,000 feet. It’s also the longest mountain tunnel in the interstate system at almost 1.7 miles long. The road to get to the tunnel was very steep uphill. The road after the tunnel was very steep downhill. There were runaway truck ramps, brake check areas, and tons of signs warning about the steep grades. Once we got to the next town, we turned around and went back through.
After passing through the tunnel, we returned to Denver and went to Outback Steakhouse for dinner. We only had granola bars for lunch, so we were very hungry. After dinner, we went to Planet Fitness for the night. Unfortunately, we were kicked out at 1AM by a police officer, so we drove to a different Planet Fitness in a different suburb 10 minutes away where we were left alone.
We got up early again the next morning to go to Rocky Mountain National Park, a little less than 2 hours from Denver. After a quick stop at the visitor center, we drove into the park to Bear Lake. There, we put on our microspikes and hiked to Emerald Lake. We passed Nymph Lake and Dream Lake along the way. Nymph Lake was completely buried in snow and wasn’t visible at all. Dream Lake was visible and completely frozen over. It was cool to walk over the wavy ice.
Emerald Lake was at the base of tall rocky mountains. It was also completely covered in snow. We saw a skier and snowboarder coming down one of the mountains. They had to hike to get to the top. It was pretty impressive to see. After taking photos of the lake, we hiked back to the car. We were very glad to have the microspikes. The trail was completely snow covered and the steep sections were slippery.
After our hike, we drove to Trail Ridge Road, the highest paved continuous road in the US with the highest elevation being 12,183 feet. The road goes through Rocky Mountain National Park. Unfortunately, most of the road is closed in winter, but we drove up until the road closure. We had lunch there before driving back down and driving back toward Denver.
Friday, we spent most of the day relaxing. We went to the local library and played video games. After that, we drove north to Fort Collins to meet Spencer’s uncle and cousins for dinner. We had some extra time, so we took the Prius to a car wash. We had a great time with Spencer’s family. After dinner, we drove back south to get a head start on our 7 hour drive to Kansas Saturday.
We switched off driving several times Saturday on our long drive. Eastern Colorado and Kansas were both pretty boring. Everything was flat, and a dull brown color. We stopped at the Kansas welcome center and took a picture with the Wizard of Oz characters.
We made another stop at the Frontier Historical Park where we took a short walk to stretch our legs and see some fenced in bison. We were surprised to see a couple of white ones. After our walk, we continued on to Junction City, where we slept at a Cracker Barrel that night. Cracker Barrel is known for letting RVers park overnight. In the morning, we went in for breakfast. I had gotten pretty cold last night since it was warm enough to not run the car. It was also a little loud since the parking lot was right next to the interstate. But it was good to give the car a break.
After breakfast, we went to Planet Fitness to shower and then went grocery shopping before setting off on a scenic drive to Wichita. The scenic drive was through the Flint Hills in eastern Kansas. We stopped at Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve to go for a 3.5 mile hike through the prairie.
The hike was crazy windy. We were nearly blown away and could barely hear each other talk. The scenery was unique but pretty monotonous. The prairie hills were a brownish yellow and seemed to go on forever. We did see a couple herds of the bison that live on the preserve. Apparently, they had been shipped over from Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota, which we had been to in the first half of the trip.
After our hike, we checked out the old home on the ranch in the preserve. It was owned and run by a wealthy family in the early nineteen hundreds. It was interesting to see how they lived back then.
We left the preserve and went for a short walk to Chase Lake Waterfall, which was just a trickle, but still nice to see. Then we drove on to Wichita where we plan on working from next week. This has been a week of extreme temperatures. We were in the low 30s in the Rockies in Colorado and the low 80s in central Kansas. I’m looking forward to being back in the eastern part of the US, along with warmer weather.
Fun Facts from Week 49:
- Mount Evans Road in Colorado is the highest paved road in the US at 14,130 feet above sea level.
- The tallest sand dune in North America is Star Dune at Great Sand Dunes National Park at 750 feet tall from base to crest.
- Scientists from Southwest Texas State University and Arizona State University determined mathematically that Kansas is flatter than a pancake.
- Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve has the largest tallgrass prairie in the world.
