ART, SCIENCE, HISTORY AND HARMONY AT THE GREAT SAND DUNES

December 4th, 2015, at the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve... A fellow writer once said - "Strive for excellence in writing, not perfection, because you will never achieve it." Correct he is! However, when I visit the Sand Dunes or other outdoor venues in the area, I have found that Mother Nature is the one force that does achieve perfection, when left alone to do so. She paints sunsets, shoots the moon and stars on night rides across the sky, blows up volcanoes, stirs up snowy and thundery tempests, sends flocks of birds across the valley in artistic formations during migrations, inhales flowing mountain streams deep into the ground and has them resurface elsewhere as wetlands, provides hot springs water at several locations around the valley, and performs many more spectacular tricks. One of these is occasionally unleashing furious winds that add her artistic expressions and impressions in shaping the Great Sand Dunes. But not this day!

"Crikey, this is good beerhh," I heard, in an unmistakeable Australian accent, as he spoke to his friend. I looked over at them and smiled as I heard the 'r' in the word beer get blended into a drawn out, strange 'h' and combined with other spoken sounds we don't have in our American English. He saw me. We were 'parked' at the bar in Three Barrel Brewing in Del Norte.

"Hey mate," he said to me, "you live around here?"

"Sort of," I answered, "I spend a lot of time in this valley. Where are you guys from in

Australia?"

'Changes' is a good song by the Band YES, and changes are something that happen regularly in our lives. The same is true for ranch and farm owners in the San Luis Valley. Decisions must be made on occasion about how to best use the family ground to adapt to changing economic conditions, mixed with what current family members consider their passion. We can all be versatile, when by necessity, we have to be.

While volunteering for the 12 Hours of Penitence Bike Race on October 18th, our aid station was treated to a local's lunch. A warm box showed up shortly after noon filled with locally grown baked potatoes and fixings, including Gosar sausages. Yum!

Penitente Canyon. Okay - now, you've heard of it. There are no excuses for not making this a future destination. Websites discuss the wonders of the canyon and the pictures should lure you this direction.
The San Luis Valley Heptathalon is my unofficial name for the following sports. If these are of interest - mountain biking, hiking, trail running, bouldering, climbing and drinking good
beer - Penitente Canyon is a great place, though it is highly recommended to save the last one for the last one. These sports are all available. Campsites and RV sites are located at the entrance and lodging is available in nearby towns. There is a cost. Check the BLM website for
more info.

The San Luis Valley in Southern Colorado is a very cool place to road-trip. Compared to the packed tourist hot-spots on I-70, The Valley is relatively quiet and undiscovered. (Don't wait too long to visit though; word about this awesome part of Colorado is spreading!) You CAN go for a hike without encountering others. You CAN drive the speed limit. You CAN see something you have never seen before. You CAN get a hotel room at a price you can live with. Oh, and The Valley is home to the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, too.

Now, about those 5 outrageous farm visits ...

Travel Quiz – What can this strange sight be? A photo shopped alligator in Colorado? Fake snow at a gator pond in Florida? A Colorado gator in his natural environment? A real photo? Had I labeled these A - D the answer is....D! On Highway 17, 15 miles north of Alamosa, the Colorado Gator Farm is an excellent stop for entertainment and education. Even as a biologist, I knew little about alligators, having not spent time in the tropics. Learned much in an hour about gators, their behavior, their physiology, and their amazing evolutionary 'run' of 80 million years! Though not alligators' natural habitat, they can survive and thrive in high altitude cold as long as their hot spring ponds are filled with 87 degree water and they get plenty of sun!