Day-Trippin' the Dunes − 21 June, 2008

We've been planning a trip with some friends to the Great Sand Dunes for a while. With everything else going on, this was just about the only weekend we could do it. And we all agreed it would just be a day trip. To be honest, I wasn't real big on the idea at first, because, holy shit, that's a long way to go for just a day trip.

It ate at me enough that we looked up the distance online; it is a three hour drive from Castle Rock to the Sand Dunes. Well, I guess that's not so bad. And if we stayed in Colorado Springs the night before and left from there, that will shave off a good 30 minutes. Sounding better...

Friday was nuts. My wife was full-out busy all day and wasn't able to do very much pre-packing. When I got home from work, it was a mad dash around the house, throwing things into a pile, passing the kids back and forth, and packing everything into the Jeep. We were going to spend the night with my wife's sister in the Springs, and she wanted us there as early as possible in order to get all the kids to bed so we could play cards and have a few drinks (been a loooong time since we've been able to do that).

Once we got our asses out the door, we were only 90 minutes later than we had planned, but that's par for the course for us. By the time we got to my sister-in-law's house, got the kids fed, bathed, and in bed, it was late. And we were all exhausted. We sighed a collective "fuck it," and went to bed. Cards and beers would have to wait.

We got up and going early the next morning, but ended up running late anyway; our friends were also late, so no one got stuck waiting around. Before meeting up with our friends, we dropped Indy off at my parent's house (we would have taken him along, but one of our friends is deathly afraid of dogs -- even pugs). As we dropped off the pooch, mom and dad both said, "Happy anniversary!"

Oh, shit. Today is our 11th wedding anniversary and we completely spaced it out. At least we both forgot, otherwise I'd be in world of shit. The look on my wife's face was priceless -- she was mortified.

The drive to the Sand Dunes really brought back memories. Except for the part where my wife almost made a lane change on top of a little sports car -- that brought a tightening of the sphincter and big rush of adrenaline. I don't think the guy in sports car even realized we almost monster-trucked right over him; I looked over after the near miss and he had his finger up his nose, happily digging for gold.

The countryside around I-25 from Colorado Springs to Walsenburg is mostly "desert southwest," then you turn west into the mountains. Ah, I remember going over La Veta pass many times when I was little. Going over it now, it certainly doesn't strike me as a fear-inducing mountain pass where one side of your car is teetering over the edge of a 2,000-foot drop. It's rather mild, as mountain passes go. The funny thing is, I distinctly remember my mom pulling out the rosary beads and starting in on the "Hail Mary's" whenever we went over that pass.

The Sand Dunes are still awesome. In all these years, it doesn't appear anything has changed. Same roads, same buildings, same dunes. The nice thing is, they keep everything very well maintained. The bad thing is, they haven't expanded the parking. This was never an issue when I was little: in all the times we went to the dunes, I never remember the parking lot ever being full. It was full today. Overflowing, in fact. We had to park along the side of the road and haul all our crap down. Which really wasn't that bad, except I somehow managed to be the one carrying the most: little girl in backpack, beach umbrella over shoulder, bucket of sand toys, water jug, and one of the coolers.

The park ranger directing traffic failed to mention to us that we could drive up to the drop off point, unload, go back up the road and park, then stroll back down free of burden. Bitch.

We made it. One final thing to do before play time: stake out a claim. The stream was flowing, which was good, but that meant we needed to cross over to get to some dry sand; all the near-by "islands" had already been claimed. The stream wasn't deep -- maybe six inches at the deepest parts -- but it was a good 150 yards across. And the people. I have never seen that many people at the Sand Dunes. Even so, it didn't seem the least bit crowded.

We set up our spot and I immediately put up the umbrella. Damn good thing we brought it, because if we hadn't we wouldn't have stayed very long; it was a clear day and the sun was beating down (though, it only got to the mid-eighties).

We ate and spent most of the time playing in the water. My son ran the entire time. I must have run a half-marathon chasing him around. Where the hell does he get the energy? After a while, the inevitable phrase reared its ugly head: "Daddy, I need to pee." Damn. I'm not even going to try to get him all the way back to the restrooms.

"Here, just sit here in the stream and go." He looked at me funny, then stood up and started to pull down his swimsuit.

"No no no! Just sit in the water and pee. It's ok. The water will wash it away." He looked at me again like I was asking him to write on his sister with magic marker. He just couldn't make himself do it. That's a good thing, I suppose. So, I walked him a little way up the stream and off into the dry sand. He quite enjoyed watching his pee "melt" the sand. He'll be writing his name in the snow in no time.

After a few hours we decided to hike a little ways up the dunes. We made it up the first dune before my son started complaining about the sand being too hot. And it was. Bare skin could not touch it more than a few seconds. Even the sand starting to creep into my shoes was baking my feet. We hot-footed it (pun intended) back to our spot and played for a while longer in the water.

Now being all the wiser about the hot sand, we had a bit of entertainment watching other would-be dune hikers stroll through the stream then go by us on their way to the dunes. Some people were barefoot; we took bets on how far a barefoot group would get (usually only ten feet). People wearing flip-flops got about twenty feet before turning back. Some genius tried taking his three small dogs. Five feet in and they weren't having any part of it; the dogs ran back to the stream and laid down in it.

Late afternoon rolled in, so we packed up and dragged everything back -- except this time we brought the cars down to the drop-off point.

It was a nice drive back, and my wife and I talked about how stupid we were for not doing this trip sooner. The drive wasn't that bad, it was surprisingly relaxing, and the kids absolutely loved it. Actually, it was a good way to spend our anniversary. (Even though I didn't see any boobs in the parking lot.)