Sand Dunes 2011!!!!

It's taken two years, but we finally made it back to the Sand Dunes - the boys' favorite place to camp. We got to go with some friends this year, over Labor Day weekend, and we even took Aspen with us. We left the house at 6am, so we arrived in time to set up camp and spend a half day on the dunes. Unbelievably strong winds whipped our tent the whole first night. We actually went to sleep hoping there would still be a tent around us in the morning. The side kept folding in and hitting Andy in the face, but we all got a little sleep - thanks to the earplugs we stopped and bought on our way down. The next day we joined up with our friends and drove to the back side of the dunes where a small creek flows. We spent the whole day at this private retreat and with 3 other dogs along, Aspen thoroughly tired herself out and was a perfect little puppy when we returned to camp. There were plenty of s'mores to be had, and much singing around the campfire (thanks to our huge new vehicle we had more than enough room to throw the guitar in with all our other camping gear and the dog crate). Thankfully, the wind wasn't near as bad the second night and we all slept wonderfully. We hung out for half of the next day before packing up and heading toward home. On the way we stopped at Silver falls (I think that's the name, but don't remember for sure) and hiked in to a beautiful waterfall flowing through a hole in the top of a cave. Sadly, it was rather crowded, so we didn't stay long, but found a quieter spot to picnic and nap. We also surprised Grandpa, in Colorado Springs, when we took our KFC dinner over to his house to eat on the way home. Knowing traffic would be horrible going up I-25 from COS to Denver we decided to try the back roads. After over 12 miles of dirt roads we finally made it home at 9:30pm. A great weekend!

I didn't have time to sort these pictures, so there is an abundance of them.