The Blanch Herd: Southwest Canyons and Rainbows Loop {10/1: Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Great Sand Dunes}

Day 3 was Saturday, 1 October. We covered a lot of miles and we checked off two new national parks!

We were only about a half hour from Black Canyon of the Gunnison at our hotel in Montrose, so we ate our breakfast and hit the road and were there in a few minutes. We stopped at the visitor's center to pick up jr. ranger books for the kids and check out the displays. Then we continued on down the road to peek over the edge at the various overlooks along the drive. It's not a very big park and doesn't have a ton to look at, but it was very cool to see the such a steep, narrow, deep canyon. I loved the displays in the visitor's center showing various famous large canyons outlines compared to this one, which is only a few hundred feet across but thousands of feet down.

Hard at work on her ranger booklet at one of the overlooks.

Lots of cracks filled with different
rock made cool designs on the faces of
the canyon.

Here's more info about those cracks.

Some seriously bright lichen!

Taking the Jr. Ranger pledge to get their badges.
(This is the first time Sam has been excited to participate
in this part . . . usually he's so shy and cries or hides behind
me, but he stepped right up and repeated the pledge with
no problemo!)

We stopped in Saguache, CO at a park (with bathrooms!)
for lunch and to move around. It had this cute little library
with a mural of books by local authors on the side.

Info about the plants in the little native plant garden
in the corner of the park.

I heart fall.

After lunch we continued on our journey toward Great Sand Dunes National Park. What a cool place! The dunes are the tallest in North America - about the height of our home ski hill Nordic Valley and all sand! We stopped at the temporary visitor center trailer building (they're renovating the real building) to snag Jr. Ranger books (always the first stop!) and then headed back to the car to drive down the road a bit to the dunes. We played in the sand near the parking lot for a few minutes, enough to experience the sand and write about it in their booklets. Then we hustled back to the rangers to take the oath and get the badge before they closed up shop for the evening. Then we went back to the dunes to really explore and play. We walked and walked and walked and climbed and climbed and climbed and never made it to the top, but did make it pretty high. The kids ran down into the deep holes and when they yelled back up for us to watch, it was like their voices were swallowed up. I could tell they were talking but I could barely hear them. Such a weird sensation! We played until we were tired and hungry, then Gregg ordered pizza in a nearby town as we drove off. We picked up the pizza, gassed up, and then continued on to Taos, where we spent then next few nights.

This wide flat are before we get to the dunes is a creek
some parts of the year. We had to walk through a little
water, but in the spring it is much wider.