Recently the family returned from our summer vacation. This year we went to visit the National Parks in Colorado. As is tradition Flat Kanley joined the family as we Waaaggghhh’d across the country!
We flew into Colorado and after having lunch and checking out the original REI we drove down to Great Sand Dunes National Park. We intended to check out the stars at night but as it was raining we just settled into our Airbnb and waited for the morning. As we were pulling up we were all amazed by the view of the Dunes. They literally looked like Mork (or Gork) dumped a huge pile of sand in front of the mountains!
The obligatory entrance sign picture.
Flat Kanley decided to get some training to battle on Tallarn if needed!
We then continued west and went to Mesa Verde National Park where we explored the ancient buildings of the Puebloan people.
We took two tours and did some exploring on our own. Flat Kanley felt right at home surrounded by these structures!
Our next stop (after a detour to Sweet Coloradough’s) was Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.
Yelp users place Sweet Coloradough’s as one of the top 50 doughnut shops in the United States. I have to agree they were quite delicious!
We explored both the popular South Rim and the less often visited North Rim.
After a long day of hiking we grabbed a few beers at Silver Basin Brewing, in a really cool old building! We also went to a super cool speakeasy called Phelanies which was super cool. I only wish we had more time to have gone again! You need to go on their Facebook page to get the password which changes monthly. Once you give it to the doorman they let you in. They don’t have a full food menu but what they have will definitely get you through a few of their amazing cocktails!
For our last National Park we went to Rocky Mountain National Park, the big boy of the Colorado National Parks.
We went to the Alpine Visitors Center, the highest elevation visitors center in the National Parks and saw the Continental Divide. We spent the most days in this National Park and had a great time. It get’s awfully crowded so I was glad I remembered to get the timed entry passes otherwise we would have been waking up really early!
We also took a tour of the infamous Stanley Hotel while we were staying in Estes Park. We took a tour during the day which was interesting, but they also have a ghost story tour at night which probably would have been even more fun!
On our last day we went back to Denver and stopped off at Mile High Comics. This place is huge and probably worth a post on it’s own!
Looks like I didn’t take anywhere near as many food pictures as I normally do, I’ll have to fix that on our next trip! Overall we had almost perfect weather the whole time, the one rainy day in Great Sand Dunes was the only time we saw really bad weather. The only thing close was we had heavy fog preventing some views on a hike in Rocky Mountain but that dissipated quickly and we ended up having a great day. In fact almost the entire time we were in Colorado the weather was at least 15 degrees cooler than back home, which was in the high 90’s, and a lot less humid so I consider the weather a great success! We ended up cooking a few meals at the places we stayed but when we went out we had a great time!
-Wachtmeister
The Wachtmeister's Patrol 