Day 4: Breathless.....and not just because of the altitude!

Day 4 by the numbers:

• 365 miles traveled
• Highest altitude:  10, 254 feet
• One trip across the Continental Divide
• One Antelope
• Only one state!
• A slew of Colorado Chipmunks -- they like sunflower seeds and pita bread

After leaving the hotel this morning, we stopped at the welcome station in downtown Lamar for some photo ops and info.  We had to get a picture with one of the giant blades of the windmills we had seen on the drive through Kansas.

 

Apparently, Lamar was a train station...once upon a time, so they had lots of neat old train stuff on display.

On to Great Sand Dunes National Park!  Most of the drive from Lamar to Sand Dunes was flat and barren. We even passed another wind farm, and had a whole new perspective on the size of those windmills.

\

The landscape quickly became more hilly and we soon started seeing mountains in the distance.  Yay!!

We drove past the Spanish Peaks, which was our first taste of the large mountains and dense evergreen forests.  Needless to say, my face was glued to the window.  (Hence, the lack of pictures of the Spanish Peaks area.  Oops.)

Soon after, we arrived at Great Sand Dunes National Park.  It was fascinating how the streams deposited sand and it created these large dunes up against the mountains.  We watched several people sand board down the dunes.  Wish we'd packed our sand boards.  :-/

After leaving the park, we were headed for our destination for the night:  Pagosa Springs.  Along the way, we passed through the San Luis Valley and saw lots of potato farms, a really big dirt devil, and a mecca for  UFO enthusiasts.  Heading through Del Norte, we were followed the signs advertising Elk and Buffalo jerky.  Not only did we find a shop, we found Elk!  And caribou!  It was neat to see them up close -- we decided not to think about the fact that they would soon be jerky.  Turns out the baby elk had just been born today.  They had a pretty garden, too -- full of poppies and columbines.

After crossing the Rio Grande we were headed uphill through Rio Grande National Forest.  The pictures from the car do not at all do the drive justice, but we were not allowed to stop due to fires nearby (we didn't see any, don't worry).  Take our word for it -- the scenery looked straight out of a fairy tale with large rocky peaks and tall evergreen and aspen trees.  We even caught a few glimpses of rocky creeks running through the area.  It was beautiful. 

 At 10,254 feet (according to our GPS), we crossed the continental divide and quickly headed downhill.  We took one last stop at a scenic overlook.  We stopped to see the waterfall, but spent much more time watching the chipmunks.  One of them approached the car as soon as we parked.  They were definitely waiting for a handout, so we obliged.  Then the chipmunks started coming out of the woodwork.  Literally.  It was funny watching them run all the way down the trail for some of our bread.

This family had sunflower seeds.  Sunflower seeds > Bread.

Tomorrow we head for Utah to visit Canyonlands and Arches National Parks.  The high tomorrow in Arches is 101 degrees.  It's a dry heat, right?