It seemed almost surreal that we were leaving New Mexico. We had come there unexpectedly but had stayed there for so long it almost started to feel like home. If we were going to make it to Alaska however there was only one way to go…..North!
Great Sand Dunes National Park – Colorado
Julie had been researching Colorado national parks and as luck would have it the last time we were in the state we didn’t make it to the southern edge. Not too far north of the New Mexico border she found Great Sand Dunes National Park. At this point in our travels we had been to over 50 National Parks, Monuments, Lakeshores, Parkways and so on. When she stumbled upon it though we were both a bit surprised. Neither of us had heard of it before but as it was right on our way we thought that we should check it out. We were glad we did!
After driving a little over an hour north from the New Mexico border we arrived. It’s possible that we had not heard of the park because it’s not close to much. From Denver the park is a 4-hour drive and from Santa Fe it’s a 3-hour drive. The drive times become insignificant when you get there though. Driving to the park you can see the dunes from more than 10 miles away. It is pretty amazing! Our first stop was to the visitor center where we learned that these dunes were the largest in North America covering 30 square miles. This equates to 5 billion cubic meters of sand with the tallest dunes reaching 750 feet. We had been to big dunes before at Sleeping Bear in Michigan but these in Colorado were on another level of size.
Looking at a park map we saw that you can’t drive too far into the park without a 4-wheel drive vehicle but it seemed that most people went to the dunes parking lot and took a hike from there. When we got to the parking lot we saw a lot of people in shorts or bathing suits. While we thought that ok, maybe its warm enough for shorts – bathing suits? There was an area of bushes and trees that the path to the dunes went through. We could see the massive dunes behind this area but nothing directly behind the bushes. We walked over, looked and yes…there was a small river dividing the parking area to the dunes themselves. The water was only ankle deep, so shallow that toddlers were just sitting down in it. We walked back to the van, threw on our shorts and set out.
Walking over the shallow river and looking at the dunes is pretty awesome. We were standing in warm water, looking at the biggest dunes that we had ever seen with snow-capped Rocky Mountains behind them. We of course had to stand there for a few minutes just taking in this scene. We then started walking up a few of the dunes. If you have never walked on a dune before imagine this. Walking on a beach, a big beach, right in the middle and not next to the water. Now make that a 30-degree slope, and with every step you take your foot slides down a half step. That’s walking up a sand dune. It’s a great workout!
We walked up a few of the dunes watching people run down them and have fun. A few people tried to sled with limited success. We found out that while we were at White Sands National Monument a few years prior the secret to sand sledding is to use a round plastic sled, pick a route and go down it time after time again waxing the sled after each run. It takes a while but after an hour or so you are zooming down the hill. Sadly for us though only after about 45 minutes on the dunes the winds started to pick up and it looked like rain showers were on the way. Julie & I made our way back down the dunes, over the shallow river and back to Bubbles heading out of the park just before the rain started.
From the park we headed a few hours away to the I-25 town of Pueblo. Once there we checked into our KOA Campground and relaxed for the rest of the night.
Pueblo, Colorado
We woke up the next morning refreshed and ready to go. As we had spent so much time in New Mexico and had already been to a lot of Colorado we were not going to spend too much time in the state. We had booked a place to stay for the night in Fort Collins on the northern border with Wyoming. Before we left the Pueblo area though we wanted to check out the town. We didn’t know much about the town, just that it was the biggest in the area, which was good, enough reason for us.
From the KOA we were in Pueblo’s small downtown in a matter of minutes. I’m not quite sure what we expected but we didn’t expect it to be as nice as it was. We found parking off of South Union Ave. and started walking around. Within a few minutes we stumbled into something pretty interesting. As we were walking down West B Street towards what looked like a train station (it did turn out to be an old train depot) we started to see lots of neon signs. We looked down the alley and for blocks the alley way was covered with all sorts of neon. I looked it up and it was called fittingly enough “Neon Alley”. An artist who loved neon signs created the alley but due to a Pueblo city ordinance could not put the signs on the front of a city building. He went around this law by putting all the signs in an alley that is almost 4 blocks long now. Julie and I walked from block to block looking at and admiring each sign. We didn’t see it at night but it must look spectacular!
We then headed further downtown. To our surprise we then stumbled onto a Riverwalk! Most everyone has heard of the famous riverwalk in San Antonio but we had found that Oklahoma City also had a riverwalk. A riverwalk in Pueblo, CO was really something that we had not expected. As it looked fairly new we looked it up and sure enough it was built within the last few years. So new in fact that half of the restaurants that were located on the riverwalk itself were not open yet but you could see construction going on inside. As we walked around the riverwalk a Japanese sushi restaurant called Blue Ocean Sushi caught our eye so in we went. It was delicious! As far away from an ocean as we were in the desert area in southern CO, this fish was awesome.
After we ate and stumbled upon the headquarters for PBR (Professional Bull Riders – if you’ve never been to one of their bull riding rodeo’s please go, it’s a really good time) we hopped back into Bubbles and headed off. Today we were finishing our day by driving up the horrific I-25. We had remembered driving up this highway was no picnic. Two years ago it seemed that the Fort Collins-Denver-Colorado Springs area was just joining into one massive city. Two years later it was just getting worse. To make it even “better” for our trip today, it was graduation day at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs and the President was in town to give the commencement speech. This meant bumper-to-bumper traffic for us from just north of Pueblo to just north of Denver. I know that Julie & I don’t have much to complain about as we are traveling the country but if I’m going to pick one thing to complain about its I-25 traffic. Finally hours later after taking detours in Colorado Springs and Denver we pulled into our campground in Fort Collins, exhausted but happy.
The next day we woke up ready to go. Even though Fort Collins was our favorite Colorado town, as we had spent time there prior, we opted to get an early start on the road. We took a quick drive through the town’s main street to see if anything had changed in the last two years before jumping back onto I-25 north and headed into Wyoming.
Casper, Wyoming
Almost immediately after crossing the CO/WY border you come across Wyoming’s capitol and largest city of Cheyenne. As we had spent a few days in the city the last time we passed through we kept on rolling. Our destination for the day was the town of Casper, a city located almost in the center of the state. It took all morning and half of the afternoon to reach Casper but that’s not to say it wasn’t a pleasant drive. Gone was the Colorado traffic and in its place beautiful western vistas and plateaus.
When we arrived in Casper we were again pleasantly surprised (pleasantly surprised was a running theme for this part of our journey). Casper was a cowboy, oil town. Most of the large buildings in town were oil company offices and the other large stores and spaces had mostly western wear. As Julie had not seen cowboy boots in a while she was all for this. We wandered into the biggest western wear store we could find at Lou Taubert Ranch Outfitters. We wandered into what we thought was the boot area only to be told that this was all men’s boots. The women’s were on the 2nd floor. So up we went to Julie’s heaven. There was a wall over a few hundred feet with row after row of boots. Julie had tried on and bought a pair of boots while we were in Austin, TX but one pair of cowboy boots is just never enough.
Knowing that she wasn’t actually going to buy a pair, but for future Julie it was important to know, the manufacturer and size so that she at one point could buy another pair. It wasn’t an issue of not being able to buy the boots but where was she going to put them. Our 19-foot van was stuffed to the brim as it was. It was still plenty of fun to look and try them on though. As she was looking at boots I noticed a brewery was just next-door and as I waited quite a while for her trying on boots, we stopped by the Frontier Brewing Company for a beer afterwards.
From the brewery we walked around the town a bit more stopping into a few stores for a postcard and cool U of Wyoming cowboy cap. We then headed back to Bubbles and drove over to the campground for the rest of the night.
Buffalo, Wyoming
The next morning we woke up well rested once again and headed back onto I-25 north. As Julie drove I started to look up towns that were on our way. One that looked appealing and familiar was the town of Buffalo. As it turned out it wasn’t familiar because of the town of Buffalo, NY or that we are Buffalo Bills football fans but it was because we had driven through Buffalo, WY two years prior on our way from the Black Hills of South Dakota to Yellowstone National Park. We hadn’t stopped however, this time we would.
Buffalo was a tiny town but it still had a lot going for it. It had a few gift shops, coffee shop, restaurants and a nice park alongside a creek. The only slightly strange thing there was that the town was located near a canyon called “Crazy Woman Canyon” and the town tried to profit off of it very hard. Tee shirts, hats and even a sign on the side of a building told of “Crazy Woman this and Crazy Woman that”. It was amusing but strange at the same time.
Sheridan, Wyoming
From Buffalo we headed north to our last stop in Wyoming in the town of Sheridan. While we had never been to Sheridan before we had certainly heard of it before. One of our good family friends, Megan, living in Utica, NY was from Sheridan so of course we had to stop. After getting off the highway; Sheridan, almost instantly became our favorite city in the state of Wyoming. Its downtown was gorgeous. The downtown shopping area was larger than Casper’s, Buffalo’s and probably Cheyenne’s combined. It had a western feel to it but all modern stores in their nicely maintained buildings.
Julie and I wandered store-to-store, block-to-block up and down the town. As it was a Saturday every store was open and people were out. It was as if the entire town was having a day out on the town. It was a ton of fun. As it was getting a bit late in the day and we still had some driving to do we said goodbye for now to Sheridan and headed back on I-25 north.
Next up…We venture further north…The Big Sky Country of Montana!
