Day 2- Great Sand Dunes Nat'l Park

We drove much further on day 2, but left our hotel in Hays early and stopped at Great Sand Dunes National Park near Alamosa, CO at the end of the day and still got to the hotel early enough for the kids to swim (and get all of the sand off of them).


Day 2 brought the introduction of Baby X to the lollipop. Yea for Dum Dums! This helped immensely on the trip, except when I looked back to wipe up some colorful drowl and the lollipop was no where to be found. He quickly became a no handed expert.


Here are some pretty pictures of flat flat Kansas taken out the car window as we drove through hours and hours of flat flat fields. Don't you love Kansas clouds?


And then we spotted mountains (the Wet Mountains by Walsenburg, CO). About a year and a half after we moved to Kansas we flew to California to visit family. Buddy was almost three and spent the whole trip amazed at the "mountains." We didn't get quite the same reaction from any of the kids this time, but Baby X did notice them and point a lot. But he currently notices and points at everything. His favorites: buses, motorhomes, semi trucks, bridges, airplanes, birds, clouds, etc.





Great Sand Dunes Nat'l Park was awesome. Buddy especially loved it. B and I were surprised by how prepared all the other visitors were in their bathing suits for a tiny stream we had no reason to expect, but all these visitors were treating like a beach. Also, several people came with snow sleds (which didn't slide very well on the sand), snow boards, or cardboard sheets to slide down the dunes on. Buddy preferred to scoot down on his bum. We were surprised by how into this Buddy was. Walking out to the dunes he was way in front of us and frustrated with our slow coachness. Then we got to this super super steep dune (B estimates it was a 60 degree angle) and he just started scooting down it. I was terrified for him... then realized that he wasn't going to slide since sand isn't like snow. Even Baby X joined in on the scooting. B tried rolling and just got dizzy and queasy. I was in charge of holding all of our stuff so it wouldn't get covered in sand while B rolled down the dune. *



Sliding down the dunes and leaving.

*Sorry, there a so many pictures and they are so little in this collage. Click the collage to enlarge.