Sand Dunes

The next morning we drove further south, towards the Great Sand Dunes national park. And now dear readers, I will share with you our approach in a story of pictures:

On our way home, it stormed.

At the Drive-In

A few miles away from our campsite was a drive-in movie theatre, which we happily attended with other outdoorsy camper-types. Some people laid out their huge whitewater river rafts and watched the film in comfort. Another group set up couch cushions in the back of their pick-up truck. We were content with our camp chairs.

The only down-side to the drive-in was that the movie showing was The Devil Wears Prada.


First there was the strangeness of watching someone hop on the subway in our old neighborhood while sitting in the middle of a field in the Rockies. Then there was the storyline which seemed to transplant midwestern values onto a backdrop of new york. 1) If you don't like your job (or someone at work tells you you're fat), quit. No one cares that you "stuck it out" in nyc. 2) If your boyfriend doesn't support your success in a job or you have to give up important networking opportunities because he needs you at home, kick him to the curb. 3) Since I can't remember the last time a major hollywood film portrayed a sucessful businesswoman, I was insulted that this lady would neccessarily fail in her home life. But Meryl Streep was excellent. Lastly, a movie about fashion ought to at least have some remotely decent clothes to show for itself. Oh well, no eye candy! We still managed to enjoy ourselves while the sun set behind the screen and the cool breeze blew off the mountain tops.

Mt. Yale

A couple weeks ago Timon and I climbed a 14er. That would be a mountain peak above 14,000 feet. It was so awesome that I am just going to let the pics do the talking. mostly.

There is the peak we climbed, which was not much closer after hiking a couple miles.

In that dead tree standing beside Timon (above) we noticed some mountain blue birds feeding their babies in a tree, so I climbed up and took a quick photo.

This photo is to give some sense of perspective of size/distance. There are people in the foreground, but there are also some tiny specks of people farther down.

At this point, oxygen was decreasing with every step, so lots of time to stop and take pictures.

We made it!

You can click on the above image to see it larger.

We celebrated with lunch.

Then we got cold and dizzy and went back down.

After seven hours and 12 miles of nearly non-stop hiking, we returned to our campsite, on the banks of this stream.

Then we went to the drive-in.