Cliffs and more!

We started our day with Robert asking the hotel front desk for a good local breakfast place where we could get breakfast sandwiches to go. Her initial suggestions were Antlers hotel restaurants and Starbucks. And if anyone knows Robert, you know he doesn't want yet another Starbucks experience since I drag him there often enough :) we finally got the suggestion for a local coffee shop called Perk and we walked over and got some great coffee and bagel sandwiches. Robert said it really "perked" him up (pun intended).

We drove to the Royal Gorge first thing. We walked across the large suspension bridge and took various photos. We found state by state signs so naturally I had to pose by my favorite.  Robert has a great pose by South Carolina, but it's on our camera so we'll have to work on getting that pulled down for the blog.

We opted out of doing the pendulum swing over the gorge, we agreed with Rhonda's advice from Europe - it was a little too cliffy for us. We did decide to walk across the 18' wide wooden bridge rather than take the gondola ride as we thought it would be nice to go at our own pace rather than be spending the whole time snapping pictures. We made the right choice, we got to take in lots of aspects of the gorge - including the river, the railroad, and the various crevices and take pictures at our own pace. It was a bit nervewracking when cars drove across the bridge since it shakes due to the suspension, but I only had to carry Robert across halfway across the bridge before he calmed down (just kidding!!). 

Next, we drove to the Great Sand Dunes. On our way, we drove along the canyon which followed the Arkansas River (which flows into the Gorge). We made a quick stop for me to make our sandwiches for lunch and got to chat with some fly fishers and campers at a local pull-off. And for a moment, I thought - I could do this on the weekends. That whole no running water thing would be quite a hindrance though.

We arrived at the Great Sand Dunes mid-afternoon with the plan to hike the dunes. We arrived at the park, went into the visitor center to get our bearings, and filled our packs with snacks. I offhandedly asked if I should wear sneakers or my Chaco sandals, and he essentially told me both because we would have to cross a creek to get to the dunes. News flash - the "creek" that is in the dunes right now is created from snow run-off. Yes a whole creek created just from snow run-off. Apparently, some Coloradoians think of this as the beach. 

So we packed two pairs of shoes and off we went to hike the sand. We successfully made it to the top of High Dune, after an hour and a half of very intensive hiking. I might have said a few times that I was dying, Robert did a great job of making we took plenty of water and snack breaks. We made it to the top and took a few pictures before a storm started coming, so we quickly hustled "down" the dunes. The down is tricky because there were still some uphill on our way down since it took us multiple dunes to get to the top. The view was worth the hard work, we had a gorgeous, unobstructed view of the mountains. 

We finished our day driving to Durango through the San Juan Forest and Rio Grande Forest (which was gorgeous) and met up with some old Charlotte friends for dinner at the Strater Belle (a historic hotel) with a country western band. 

We are off to Grand Canyon Monday!

Vocab/quotes:

"I'm making a canyon out of your bread"- Emily while making Robert a sandwich out of a big loaf of French bread

Creek: a body of water created by snow run-offs

Coloradoian: a resident of CO. Interests include extreme exercise, including running, hiking, or biking up large mountains while running the risk of closure due to snow or becoming trapped because of a snow storm. Finding it commonplace to check the roads, not for traffic but for snow closures because they can be closed almost any day of the year. 

Fun fact: Great Sand Dunes is the quietest national park in the continuous US 

Bonus question: Define running 2 14'ers (no internet help allowed)