Day 58 – Sept 2 Drove to Witchta Falls

Just an overnight stop at the Witchita Falls RV park.

Day 57 – Sept 1 Drove to Amarillo, Dinner at the Big Texan Steak house

Next stop is Amarillo.
Dinner at the Big Texan, order and eat a 72 oz steak and the dinner is yours free. No, we did not sign up. We had a hard time with 8oz between the three of us….

Day 56 – Aug 31Left Sand Dunes NP, had flat tire, overnight in Raton NM

Today we head back home to Texas. First stop Raton, NM.

On our way back to the freeway just as we went over the top of the mountain the trucks low tire pressure monitor sounded off. Finally after about five miles we were able pull over. We heard the tire hissing the slow leak even after the tire was all changed and we were ready to take off again.

We made it to the next rather large town of Raton in time to make it to the local tire store before they closed. Tire was not fixable, no they did not have a replacement, no there is no other place in town open, yes they had a used but not rv weight rated tire.

So we had then put that one on just in case and rode the rest of the way home on the spare.

Day 55 – Aug 30 Played in the Sand dunes, had power problems when we returned, Rosalie got another badge

Today was play in the sand day. It was a great deal of work to play in the sand for a few hours.

The dunes themselves are about a ¾ of a mile hike from the parking lot. So we packed up a camp chair, ground cover, large umbrella, snacks, water onto a couple of rented sand sleds ( basically snow boards).

After a couple of hours playing in the sand we had a hard hike back to the truck, but it was an experience that we would not have missed.

We stopped in at the visitors center where Rosalie managed to get herself another junior ranger badge at the sand dunes park, number 4.

When we returned to the rv park we found we had power problems. After a bit of troubleshooting we found the entire half of the park had a voltage reading from the neutral to ground, generally not a good thing. So, we moved down to the good side of the park. Not fun to move like that but necessary.

Day 54 – Aug 29 Left Colorado Springs bound for Great Sand Dunes NP

We had thought of going down to the Royal Gorge but just happened to pick up a newspaper to help light the evening fire and noticed an article that the buildings at the gorge site had been destroyed in the June/July fires.
So, we headed to the Great Sand Dunes National Park instead.

Day 53 – Aug 28 Train ride up Pikes Peak, dinner in Manitou Springs, Garden of the Gods

We headed off for a trek up Pikes Peak, the easy way, up the cog rail road.
It’s quite a pretty view from the 14,000 foot summit. It’s not the highest peak in Colorado but is the first one the settlers could see when coming in from the east thus became a trail marker.

Dinner that evening was in Manitou Springs at the foot of the cog rail road. The little mountain town had just suffered though a major flood the week or so before we got there. It sounds like they were hit again with the latest round of floods. The summer burn made the runoff even worse that it might have been.

After dinner we drove back through the Garden of the Gods, a city park of sorts with lots of rock formations. The park is pretty during sunset.