Crossing Colorado from Mesa Verde we stayed mostly on two lane route 160 through beautiful scenery and a neat pass across the Rocky Mountains that crested at 10860 feet. We arrived at about 4 hours to Great Sand Dunes NP. This is the next to the last NP (not NPS site) I need for all the lower 48 states. The last one is Lassen Volcanic in Northern California. But back to the Sand Dunes. It is an odd site to see these dunes reaching up to about 900 feet over the desert floor against a mountain backdrop. The primary activity is boarding down the dunes and lots of people were. It was otherwise a beach with no ocean! We took a neat hike along a nature trail and a bit of a walk on the dunes. Then across miles of eastern Colorado desert to a tiny town where we spent the night in preparation for two more parks in the morning.
