Exploring Southeast Colorado and Taos

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Prelude to the "Real Thing"

This is our first real trip out with Serendipity and we were doing a trial run to see what we needed to jettison from our supplies, what we needed to add to our equipment and supplies and what 5 days in a 22 foot trailer would be like.... before we took off for six weeks to the Shenendoah Valley and back through the northern mid east home.

Monday, May 5, 2014 The Road to the Great Sand Dunes    

 For us we were off to an early start, or would have been had we not had some significant issues to deal with.  Perhaps the pair that posed the most difficult issues was the fact Serendipity had slipped off her moorings and was almost too low to get the ball under it, the other one was attaching the torsion bars.  The first issue just took a half dozen runs getting the right angle to slide under the hitch.  The torsion bars were a more difficult problem; it required shifting to each side of the road for a change in the truck’s angle, it also required a loosening of the top bolt on the hitch to change its angle as well.  Difficult as these issues were, we still were on I-25 by 9:30 and headed south.

A plum of black smoke rose ahead of us roughly where the Drake Power Plant was; it turned out to be in fact the plant.   We later learned that lubricating oil had been ignited; there wasn’t an assessment of how much damage had been done, what it would cost to repair, or how long the plant might be out of service.   Whatever the impact, we had had our excitement for the morning.

We continued south to Walsenburg stopping to once again take pictures of the rural mailboxes.  Apparently such interest stirred up one of the residents; he gave us a look that would kill as his significant other picked up the mail, but said nothing.  With little else to talk about, we began to discuss the Ludlow Massacre that occurred on April 20, 1914 at the encampment of the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company (CF&I) strikers and the skirmishes at dozens of mines that claimed somewhere between 69 and 199 lives over the next 10 days that included a series of clashes with the Colorado National Guard along a 40 mile front between Trinidad and Walsenburg.  It remains the deadliest strike in American history.  One of these days we will have to make Walsenburg and Trinidad our destination for a weekend in pursuit of this little known piece of history.

 It was early afternoon when we made the turn off to the Great Sand Dunes, which we could see in the distance at the base of the still snow-capped Sangre de Cristo Mountains some 20 plus miles away. 

With no prior experience in this area, our first priority was a place to camp; we had our choices at Piñon Flats – roadside sites or back in.  Perhaps ill-advised, we chose what seemed to simpler site – roadside.  Nothing could have been further from the truth.  First we got the trailer too close to the downslope tent camp area and had to stumble out the door onto a low rock wall rather than flat asphalt.  Next we had a battle with Serendipity who was misbehaving, she refused to settle nicely on our blocks – she rolled off twice and refused to level ever.  We gave up with an approximation of level. Getting inside Serendipity we discovered the potatoes and onions had burst their cage and ran amok. We are finding them in the strangest places . . . it's like an Easter egg hunt.



Finally setup we took off for our usual starting point for a national park – the Visitor’s Center.   Strangely this one seemed quite limited, although we found the “Friends of Great Sands” video one of the best we have seen at a park; it seemed complete but not dull and belabored.  Next we set out to experience the tallest dunes in the United States for ourselves. 

The picnic parking lot by the Mendano Creek served as the starting point.  The video had talked about “surges” or mini flash floods at a depth of around three inches, just enough to crest the tops of your shoes if you don’t mind where you are when one passes.  According to the video these surges were caused by sand rills breaking down and releasing the dammed water.  Nature is an amazing adventure. 

Patrice made it to the top of the first dune when she realized that she had not brought her inhaler and there was wind and blowing sand that might leave her gasping for air.  She prudently headed back to the truck while Larry struck out for the high point where weI could see specks that were people at the top.  Again referring to the video, it said the hike was a challenge; they were oh so right.  The sand was soft and easily fell away when you took a step – three steps to make the equivalent of one.  It was a forty five minute battle that sand, slopes and a parched throat won. Larry turned around and gamboled down the same slopes that seemed so impossible just minutes before going the other way.   

We went back to the campground to celebrate our adventure with a glass of wine and a simple, but good, dinner of chili, chips, cheese and some of the relocated onions.  The drive, the battle with the trailer and the assault on the dunes had worn us down and we both were soon fast asleep in our cozy little abode.