Author: Sarah

We arrived at Great Sand Dunes National Park on a very windy afternoon.  The sun was out and it was a lovely temperature but when we thought of exploring the sand dunes in high winds, it didn’t sound too appealing.  Instead we decided to hang out in the campground, let the girls play, relax and catch up on some internet stuff like this blog.  Internet is fairly hard to come by so we try to take advantage when we do have it.

We were super excited to see the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park. We actually passed right by this park on last year’s trip, but decided not to stop since it was November and the tours had already shut down for the season. This year we were early enough that the main tour was still running. On the way to the park, we made a stop at Canyons of the Ancients National Monument as well.

Last year we visited the Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands National Park, so we thought that this year we would check out the lower section, the Needles District.

We had had several people tell us that Dinosaur National Monument was well-worth the trip, but we didn’t really know anything more about it than it was a place where dinosaur fossils had been found. We assumed there would be a few fossils on display but the actual exhibit was far cooler than what we had imagined.

We only got to spend about a day and half at Grand Teton National Park– a half day as were were driving through from Yellowstone, and another full day after. What we saw was a beautiful– it would be a great park top come back to when the girls are older to do one of the more strenuous mountain hikes.