July 23 Alamosa

We had a nice dinner last night.  The girls and I helped Louise prepare a pork tenderloin with pineapple and kiwi salsa, roasted corn salad and stuffed mushrooms and peppers.  Mike grilled burgers and dogs and we had a feast!  We took the dogs for a walk and I had to run back to the house for my camera as we saw the tail end of a rainbow as we approached the end of the driveway.  We sat around and chatted for a bit and the girls tried out a game Mike and Louise have downstairs - electronic Burger Time.  We all went to bed on the early side as we knew we were going to get up early.

We got everyone up and out in good time and drove out to Great Sand Dunes National Park.  The highest dune is 755 feet - very impressive.  We took off our shoes to walk across the shallow river and then walked a long way on the sand before getting to our first dune.  Everyone had a grand time, but there were certainly some spills at the bottoms of the hills.  Zoe did a roll over and got sand in mouth, Mike landed on a rock and got a cut on his elbow, Ella hit her hip on the sled as she landed, and Louise fell and hurt her ribs.  Despite the walking wounded, everyone had a great time.  We stopped back at the visitor center so the girls could collect their last jr. ranger badges and got home in time for lunch.  Mike checked his phone when he got in and discovered that his mom had passed away just an hour before.  She had been in a nursing home in NH for a while, but no one was expecting her fast decline.  We changed our plans so that we will be leaving tomorrow morning instead of Tuesday morning - so we will be getting home a day earlier than expected.  We figure that they need some space to make arrangements to fly to NH, get someone to care for the dogs, etc.  The girls have just come in from the pond.  They had a great time paddling the float all over - saw some frogs and fish, but no beaver (they usually don't come out except early in the morning and in the evening).

The weird shadow picture is of Ella's shadow as she carried her sand board across the parking lot.