Garden of the Gods/Desert Hawk/Lathrope State Park/Great Sand Dunes

Great Sand Dunes.  The  mound to the left is as high as we went.   They were endless and still higher elevations.

On our way to Lathrop State Park (Walsenburg, CO) we stopped by Garden of the Gods and Desert Hawk Golf Course (Harvest Host overnight).   Garden of the Gods was on the route we were taking so we thought we'd stop by and take a gander.   It's a combination of unique rock formations set up like a garden that you can walk around.   The 480 acre area was donated by the children of Charles Perkins in 1909 to the city of Colorado Springs.   It's free to visit and the day we were there was very active.   It was a nice stop along the way to Desert Hawk Golf Course.    

At Desert Hawk, enjoyed a round of golf and met a member and his girlfriend on the second hole and played the rest of the round with them. They were very friendly and shared their peanut butter whiskey.  As an FYI, the girlfriend is a traveling nurse and just got done with Stevie Nicks 3 month tour.   Pretty Cool!

Finally made our way to Lathrop State Park the following morning located in the lower part of Colorado.   Let me just say that the Colorado State Parks are beautiful and well maintained.   Did a nice hike within the campground of the Spanish Peaks and lake (it was a little warm there so the lake was nice to swim in late afternoons when we got back from exploring).    Took a full day to hit the Great Sand Dunes National Park.   These dunes are roughly 150,000 acres of sand as high as 750 feet.   It was unbelievable has you come up on the dunes how massive they are, especially when trying to walk up to what you think is the top and then you see higher dunes in the distance.  There are several places to get sliding boards to go down.  There were two problems from what we saw.   First, once you get down you have to get back up which depending on the steepness was tough and burnt a lot of energy.   Secondly, we saw several people get hurt from the jolt of hitting the bottom of the sand from the speed they were going.   OUCH!   We have enjoyed Colorado and put it up there with South Dakota as our favorite states visited SO FAR.  

I'm about 2 weeks behind in my blogs.   Currently writing this from Napa, CA where the weather is a 81 degrees.   😁

Garden of the Gods.   Kami wanted me to take a riskier pose, not sure why?  The area has unique rock formations with garden of plants and trees dispersed thru out.  

Kami taking picture of our new golfing buddies holding the peanut butter whiskey.  It was an enjoyable evening with two good hearted souls.   

Nice picture of the Spanish Peaks in the distance with lake from our hike within the campground.   Made gourmet individual pizzas and zucchini fritters with cucumber wasabi sauce for my babygirl.  It's nice to have a traveling chef on the trip!  We have done a lot of cooking since the cost of eating out has gotten expense.  It's unfortunate as we do like to go out to eat.  So far the biggest dishes have been Lasagna, Eggplant Parmesan, Fish Tacos, Shrimp Fried Rice, Burgers, Tuna Nachos, Enchiladas, Vegetable Pad Thai......and yes a lot of peanut butter and jellies.  😉

Climbing our way to the top?  

As far as Kami was concerned, we were high enough.  There were dunes another 200 feet high in front of us.

Had to get a picture of the dogs with googles.