Enjoy both at Great Sand Dunes National Park!

Families are often torn between beach and mountain vacations. Problem solved. The Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve provides both from mid-April into June. Because of higher-than-average snowpack and heavy spring rains, this year that time has been extended into July. Imagine my surprise on the Saturday after Memorial weekend and having to park over a 1/4 of a mile from the main parking lot. (In contrast the beautiful sunny December 18th day in 2014; I was car three in the lot that has hundreds of spaces.) Wow! Florida Beach? Southern Cal? Jersey shore? Snow covered Mount Herard to the northeast which provides much of the snowmelt water, assured me otherwise! I filled my day pack with necessary supplies - especially water, as the air temp was only in the low seventies, but between low humidity and a blazing high altitude sun, drinking water is required.

Peaceful Luxury

We all hope, for ourselves, and everyone else, for a joy-filled journey through life. However, recognizing the unreality of a smooth road without bumps and potholes, or life's unexpected twists and turns, it is nice to know that places exist for us to pursue some of our joys over which we have control.

One more of the hot spots for hot springs in the San Luis Valley, where Mother Nature makes her warm and wonderful waters available, is the Joyful Journey Hot Springs Spa located 50 miles north of Alamosa just south of the junctions of highways 285 and 17. As with the other hot springs in the SLV, the water requires no purification. Mother Nature takes care of that too!

Fast furious and frenetic, yet gracefully choreographed, are my words for the evening out-flight of the Orient Land Trust bat colony. As day yields to night, the voices of the 25 of us gathered at a fence above the opening of the old mine shafts—now the bat caves—are hushed as we await the 'opening act.' Rapid click-click chatter noises begin coming from a device that a Colorado Division of Wildlife employee is using to monitor the bats' activities. Soon, several forerunning bats open the gala and communicate to the cave that the coast is clear. Let the out flight begin!

Mountains. What is it about the human senses that want to go beyond the beauty of mountains as a backdrop to the horizon, and make those people with a 'climbing mentality' be determined to get to the top? The quote, "Because it is there," is attributed to George Mallory—an English climber—who was on his third attempt to climb Mt. Everest in 1924 when he perished along with his climbing partner Andrew Irvine. To reach 29,008’ requires major preparations in the land of perpetual ice, rock, and snow. And climbing equipment in those days was not as sophisticated as the technological advances of the last 75 years. It is amazing that they could even make the attempts in the 1920s. Such is the human spirit, as Mallory explained in an interview with the New York Times in 1923. "Everest is the highest mountain in the world and no person has reached its summit. Its existence is a challenge. The answer is instinctive, a part, I suppose, of humans' desire to conquer the universe." The debate continues as to whether or not they made it to the top as they were seen through a telescope very close to the summit and then never seen again.

September 9th in Alamosa started as a cloudless 36-degree morning. My plan for the day was to drive to the Blanca Peak trailhead and power hike up as far as I could in four hours toward the summit. After reading several trail information websites (14ers.com is a good one), I affirmed that the trail to Como Lake would be a steep and rocky hike, and close to 4,000 feet of vertical in six miles from parking.

The Blanca Peak jeep road turns east from CO 150 (one of the roads to the Great Sand Dunes), three miles north of Highway 160. The dirt road crosses grasslands for over a mile before turning to nothing but ashen gray rock. This is a good place to park a car as hiking is faster than driving! This road is considered the most difficult 4-wheel drive road in the state. For Colorado - 'that be sayin' somethin!'

Way back when, a different time frame for each of us, I was in sophomore English when our teacher gave us an OPT. Fortunately, it was not a communicable disease, but an Occupational Preference Test, the only test I remember taking in high school that was not graded. The test showed how our answers to questions about preferences for situations and interests in life compared to the attitudes of people in various professions.

As I recall, a question would ask us about 'If you were in a band would you rather be the lead singer, the drummer, play guitar, be a roadie or the band manager.' The test seemed redundant in ways that made me think I was contradicting myself so I had no idea what my OPT would reveal about what profession I might choose. When we received the results we were given the top 3 possible professions for which our answers most closely matched the attitudes for people in those lines of work.