After a great visit in Gordon, it was time to make our way back to Arizona. We drove to Denver on Thursday and again stayed at the adorable Queen Anne Bed and Breakfast. We didn’t make it out of a lackluster escape room and had a terrific dinner at D Bar. The next morning we were off to Great Sand Dunes National Park with a stop at Fort Garland first. Fort Garland had nice artifacts and exhibits telling this slice of western history and was a good stop. We got to Great Sand Dunes in the late afternoon and went to the visitor center and got our first look at the big dunes. Very scenic with the Sangre de Cristo mountains in the background. We checked into the Great Sand Dunes Lodge just outside the park and returned closer to sunset to wander around the dunes. The clouds lifted enough for a little of the sunset colors to peek through and it was a lovely evening.

We were back on the dunes the next morning to hike up to the ridge. It was not a long hike, but *phew* it was very tiring hiking up sand. It was worth it for the great views we got from the ridge. We could see the thirty square mile dune field rolling towards the mountains and it was beautiful. It took us a fraction of the time to get down and we had a leisurely afternoon to wait out the rain. We took a walk behind the visitor center in the evening and while the clouds were impressive, they prevented a colorful sunset. The next morning I spent some time trying to photograph the hummingbirds. The lodge had a number of feeders and the humming of the birds was a constant sound during our stay. Definitely a bonus of staying there!

We had one last stay on our trip - Ouray. On our drive from Great Sand Dunes to the San Juan Mountains, we stopped at Colorado Gators. Which was … interesting. We did have a laugh that with all the gators, tortoises, and other reptiles on display, we were like “Oooh! Cats!”. We got to hold a baby alligator, there were tortoises wandering around, and we liked how the gators looked happy lounging in the sun. After lunch in Gunnison we arrived in Ouray in the late afternoon under cloudy skies. We walked around town, admired the views and had dinner at Colorado Boy Southwest Pub before retiring to our room at the Matterhorn. Luckily the skies were clear when we woke the next morning. We had a leisurely morning and lunch at Maggie’s Kitchen before our jeep tour with Alpine Scenic Tours. We rode into Yankee Boy Basin and stopped to check out the old mining sites and learn the mining history and to see Twin Falls. Then we drove up to Governor Basin, stopping at a viewpoint that had nice views of the valley and down to Twin Falls to where we were. It was a beautiful day in the mountains - we love the San Juans! We had another quiet evening with dinner at Goldbelt and reading in the room - then it was back home the next morning to see Steve and the kitties. We had a great trip!