Day 14 – Albuquerque, NM to Great Sand Dunes National Park, CO

Miles driven today: 246 Cumulative miles: 3269 Woke up at 8:00am and got all of our stuff packed up before heading downstairs for breakfast. While we were eating out on the patio, I got a text from my dad saying his next job assignment will be in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He’ll be headed over there in mid-October and my mom will follow in mid-November. He should be home at least one more time before then, so we will get to see him. I also found out that two of my friends from grad school who lie in Bangkok, Thailand will be getting married in January, so Daniel and I may try to go there for a week, if at all possible. We visited for a while after breakfast and left just before 11:30am. Per Joel’s advice, we drove through Santa Fe and took 285 north almost all the way to Great Sand Dunes National Park. The drive took about 5 hours, but we got to pass through a lot of pretty scenery. We got to the Visitor Center about 4:30pm and went in to have a look around. While we were there, we overheard the ranger saying there were four bears coming down into the park every morning (the dunes are backed up to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, which are forested and very much in bear country). I’ve been camping in bear country before and it didn’t really bother me then. I think I was more intrigued than scared – I blame naivety. When my family took a vacation to Yosemite 12 years ago, there were bears all over the campground. I can remember watching them at the site next to us where the people had left food on the table. I also saw them roaming the campground, within 20-feet of us, when we were walking to the bathrooms. Our friends that were camping with us said they heard the bears brushing up against their tent fly in the middle of the night. And I still wasn’t scared?!? What was I thinking? I’m pretty freaked out now about camping in bear country. Anyway, we left the Visitor Center and hoped to take some photos of the dunes, but the clouds were pretty dark and gloomy and made for bad, flat pictures. We went to the campground and set up our tent. Our rain fly was still damp from the storm we had while camping in Mesa Verde three nights ago. We probably should have dried it out at Jim and Jane’s, but it actually dried out in about ten minutes after setting up the tent. Daniel decided he wanted a campfire, so we walked a short distance to buy some firewood. Before we even got back to the campsite with the wood, it started to rain pretty hard. We put the wood in the back of the car and then jumped up front. We decided to go for a drive on the dirt road out to the Point of No Return. The road continues beyond that point, but it is recommended only for high clearance, 4-wheel drive vehicles and tire pressure at 15psi. The road up to that point was rough as it was, so we decided to turn around and drive back to camp. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, but everything was soaked. By this time, we had about an hour until the ranger talk at the amphitheater. We sat in the car and played games for lack of anything better to do and another dry place to do it. While we were in the car, we saw four deer (two does and two bucks) walk into our campsite. We watched them for a few minutes, then one of them started licking the picnic table at our site. Another was rooting around in the ashes of the fire pit. At some point or another, all four of them sampled whatever was on the table. It could have just been water, but there was plenty of water elsewhere. Anyway, they continued this for more than five minutes and we were able to get the camera out to take some photos before they moved on. At 8:00pm, we went to the amphitheater for the ranger talk about Black Bears and camping/ hiking in bear country. I dozed off sometime in the middle of the 45-minute presentation, so I can’t say I really learned much. We went back to our campsite and, as exhausted as I was, opted to skip dinner and go to bed. Daniel, who was still quite awake, stayed up reading. Wildlife seen: magpies, deer