Decided to keep it around the town...you know with $4 plus gas prices and all
. Sand Dunes and Mesa Verde. I really wanted to see the San Luis Valley and Crestone/Alamosa (Crestone has the only open air crematory in the country) to see if its some place I wanted land (and to land). Well the answer is hell no. Definitely not my scene....we paid $70 for lunch at some Hippie cafe in Crestone. Sure everything was grown/made in Crestone but damn.......way too small of a town where the hot button topic was dogs on leashes. Typical hippies (I love goat cheese).
Alamosa is pretty run down and the San Luis valley seems to be very depressed financially. I would hunker a guess its because its not a very nice place to live......hot, wind, dirt, no trees, limited water (even though the whole valley is on top of a rapidly depleting aquifer).......all is not lost though....there are some amazing views of Blanca and Crestone (and other 14ers that I could name but won't). The town of Crestone itself is situated at the base of the mountain.
The Sand Dunes were interesting and much larger than I expected. The entry fee was expensive $25 and the park needed some personal touches for disabled/elders. Sand in my ass isn't really my thing and neither is 150 degree sand to walk on. Either way we went and walked to the base stood there for 5 minutes and were like yep its a lot of sand in the middle of nowhere....and its weird. Worth a look but for me and mine that was it. We were glad we stopped at Zapata Falls before the Dunes.
On our way to Durango we stopped at the UFO Watch Tower....apparently San Luis Valley is well known for weird shit.....the valley itself is flat and unpolluted with light. There also isn't shit to do but smoke weed and look at the sky....so makes sense if everyone is always looking up! I like that weird shit anyway...and paid for walking around in my sandals with a fire ant bite (which lingered for a good day).
Now if you take 160 west for an hour things start to pick up. Drove through Pagosa Springs which seems to be a VERY happening yuppie town now.
Durango was beautiful...got to see Ft Lewis college where my Alaskan BFs kids go and it was very nice. I could easily take a trip back through Ouray and Telluride next time.
Mesa Verde was very cool......asked about Vets discounts and they gave me a free year pass to National parks.....wish I had asked that at the Sand Dunes!
Sadly the tours were cancelled and you can't actually go into the Cliff Palace right now (and probably not again). It is a lot of driving around in the park, jumping out and looking. I didn't really expect that but it was a good time.
Overall a pretty good trip...short and a lot of time in the car.