A trip to the beach in Colorado

Nestled against the Sangre de Christo mountains of southeastern Colorado are the tallest sand dunes in the USA! The dunes are in the foreground, and the mountain peaks are behind them. We camped in this park, way up close to the dunes and the mountains, for four happy and peaceful nights! This area is descriptively called the beach. The water is coming from the snowmelt of the mountains, and will soon dry up until next summer. Meanwhile, kids bring their buckets and shovels and have the time of their lives!

I couldn't resist capturing this image of childhood joy:

Lots of visitors climb to the top of the dunes (not us!!). It takes an average of an hour to get there. The park host told Bill that a world class runner had visited the dunes and got to the top in 20 minutes! (Pant, pant!)

Vanna gets high!

Leaving Arches NM in Utah, we turned back east to begin our return trip. We drove through Colorado National Monument without stopping for long. Vanna was such a good traveler! Here you can see the high mountains she climbed to take us up to the view of Grand Junction, Colorado, in the distant valley. The tall formation you can see is called Independence Monument, resembling the tower of Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

Yep, more red rocks. We never seemed to tire of the beautiful views. Photos don't do them justice--you've just gotta be there!

Arches National Monument, Utah

Arches National Monument, Utah, is a wonderland of huge red rocks!

Balanced Rock is one of the most photographed formations, and you can see why!
We took a short hike through Devil's Gardens.

This is the arch we saw on that hike. Most of the larger arches required more strenuous hiking than we were able (willing) to do!

A beautiful western sky at night!

Camping at Flaming Gorge, Wyoming

This is the view from our campground in southwestern Wyoming, after we drove through the Teton Mountains. Flaming Gorge Reservoir is one of many manmade lakes in the western states.

The Grand Tetons--Western Wyoming

Love those mountain wildlowers! This is the view across Jenny Lake.

The drama of the Tetons is that they have no foohills. They simply rise abruptly up from the valley floor.

Yellowstone Images of Beauty

Yellowstone Falls and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River:

One of the many boiling springs:

Kepler Cascades:

Mountain flowers :

Yellowstone Elk

Bill loved seeing the elk at Mammoth Hot Springs. The cows and calves love to come right into town and graze on the lawns of the administrative buildings. The calves are lying up close to the buildings.













A much rarer sight is an elk bull with a rack. We enjoyed spotting this one along the highway. His antlers apear to still have velvet on them.

Monday, June 30: Yellowstone Wildlife--Bison

American bison are easily seen in Yellowstone, but not always up close. This one was close to the road, and very cooperative for this photo op. The buffaloes have shed nearly all of their heavy winter coats now. It will soon be time for them to begin growing them again for next winter.

Sunday, June 29: Yellowstone at last!

When we arrived at Yellowstone National Park we were pleased to get a campsite for three nights at Norris Campground. We took our first drive around the northern loop and had a close encounter with a Grizzly Bear! He was calmly munching greens on the right shoulder of our road! Jan was driving, and was excited to begin our very own "bear jam". Since I am the designated photographer and was driving at the time, we failed to get a photo of this beautiful blonde bear. He looked about half grown, and was not the least concerned with our presence!

One of the small waterfalls. There was still a small amount of snow on the mountains, so these falls are from the snowmelt runoff. Later in the summer they will be gone.

We entered from the east side, so one of our first views was of beautiful Lake Yellowstone, with the snowy mountains reflected in the water. This is the largest freshwater lake in the world.

June 28: Wyoming--and snowy mountains!

An exciting moment--our first distant view of the Rocky Mountains, with snow on them. The standard conversation is,

"Is it snow or clouds?

It's snow!

No, it's clouds!

No, it's SNOW!"

Some of the pretty Wyoming wildflowers.

A closer view, and no doubt--it IS snow!

Mt. Rushmore

Here is a sight we've dreamed of seeing for a long time. Awesome!

Camping in the Badlands

We followed a shower into the Badlands Park, and when we got to our campsite, this was the view toward the east--a beautiful rainbow over the fragrant field of clover. During the night, the cool breeze came from this direction, and we had a very enjoyable sleep!

The Badlands of South Dakota

Our first real mountains on this trip, and we thought they were beautiful! Lots of peaks and spires.

Bill had his eye on this little jewel because he thought we'd have more room than we do in Vanna Purple. But it didn't have a top, and we were afraid we might have some rain, so we had to pass it up.

Actually, this is more of "what you'll never see if you don't leave your recliner." Somewhere in South Dakota!