Hello Colorado - San Juan Skyway and Great Sand Dunes

We are glad to get a welcome from any state, but does anyone else see the problem with this sign?  It says "COLORFUL" Colorado, but there's not a bit of color in the sign or the landscape around it!

Colorado has not been particularly helpful with our travels so far. To start with, the campground we selected close to Durango/Vallecito did not turn out to be what it advertised, so we left and relocated to another spot in Ignacio (good move by the way and very thankful something else was available on such short notice).  And, ever since we arrived in Colorado, it has been cold and windy and we have had more rain in Colorado than all of the rest of our travels over the past 2 1/2 months combined.  We have had near perfect weather since we left home in early July and we are thankful for that, also for safe travels.  So, we are not complaining but a lot that we had planned for Colorado, so far has not been possible.

One of the reasons we initially chose Durango as a good location was because it is located on the #1 motorcycle ride for the state.  I had a one-day weather window to get that 220-mile ride in, but the wind was 20 to 30 mph, gusting to 40, so Rhonda and I rode it together in the truck.  Since that one-day window, it has been raining and snowing with very cold temps, so much so they even opened their ski slopes at Silverton earlier than usual, and the forecast for the next week was for much of the same.

So let's start with that truck ride on the San Juan Skyway.  Mid-September to mid-October is the best time of the season for the aspens and other fall colors.  Oh baby - it was stunningly beautiful.  We took 192 pictures, and I have never had so much trouble deciding which ones to post.  Here's what I came up with.  Enjoy.

We thought aspens were always yellow in the fall, but they can also be orange and sometimes even red.  (Did not see any reds).

Even the stream put on its fall colors.

One stretch of the roadway is referred to as "The Million Dollar Mile Highway," referring (supposedly) to the cost per mile.  Unfortunately though, for each million of highway costs, it did not come with guardrails.  As you can see below, what were they thinking?

But they added a little treat - a steel platform that hangs in the air above a waterfall. The platform is grated steel, so you can look straight down through the platform. Rhonda's checking it out and appears to be making progress with her fear of heights after this trip! (From Rhonda: My fear is not from heights, but from heights without guardrails!)

The waterfall below, "Bear Creek Falls," and note the clear water in the pool at the bottom.

There are two towns on the route we covered - Silverton and Ouray (pronounced Youray).

Ouray is known for it's quaint and pretty homes.

Ski slopes, Telluride and Purgatory, are also on the route. We only passed by Purgatory.

With the weather forecast to get worse for the next week, we saw no reason to hang around and moved on to Alamosa to tour the Great Sand Dunes National Park.  It's a little hard to see in the picture, but we had a beautiful view of the mountains from our RV park in Alamosa.

It was rainy, windy, and cold there also, but we were treated to a special double rainbow after a day of rain, probably the most brilliant rainbow colors we have ever seen.

The double rainbow below.

We only had about half of one day with weather good enough to tour Great Sands, but even then it was still windy and cold, and we had to bundle up a bit.  Now if it's windy and cold, you may be wondering why Rhonda is barefoot.  With blue skies and sunshine, the medium-dark sand soaks up the sunshine and the top layer of the sand was pretty warm (so she says).

The down side to that was having to cross Medano Creek to get to the dunes.  Here she goes.  

By the way, the depth of Medano Creek is a seasonal thing - about one foot deep during the spring snow melt, eventually going dry in June. So, while the rainy weather has impacted our plans, without it we would not have been able to see Medano Creek.  Those of us who kept our shoes on were able to selectively plan our crossing and stay dry.  An entire "shoed" family was debating the crossing when I got to the bank and they asked, "Can you cross without getting your feet wet?"  I thought the appropriate answer was "Depends on where you step!" 

So, here's the short version on The Great Sand Dunes.  The predominately SW wind blows across the huge and very sandy San Luis Valley, picks up the sand and deposits the majority of it in a relatively small 41,000-acre area in a mountain basin.  (The total dune area is 149,000 acres.) The 41,000-acre area is 750 feet tall and sits on a large aquifer formed by the snow melt.  The runoff is absorbed by the sand until saturated and the overflow forms the creeks that surround the dunes and run into the valley.  The creeks pick up lots of the sand and carry it back into the valley, only to be picked up again by the SW winds........ you get the idea.  Below -  the valley, the dunes, and the snow-capped mountains.

In the close-up below, you can see Medano Creek on the east side of the dunes.  There's another creek on the west side. And of course, the beautiful aspens below the snow line.

You get a feel below for how far the valley extends in the distance.

Rhonda on the way up the hill with only about a mile and 700 vertical feet to go.  I talked her out of it, and we headed back to the truck where there was heat and no wind.

And we got a nice shot of another snow-capped mountain on the way back to the RV.

That's about it for Colorado so far, hoping for better weather in Colorado Springs.  We'll give it 5 days and then we need to head back home.  Later.