Day 5 - Walsenburg, CO to Vernal City, UT

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Day 5 - Oct 12, 2014, Walsenburg, CO to Vernal City, UT

520 miles, 4 National Parks and 2 states (Colorado & Utah)

AND 2 Bureau of Land Management sites (Petroglyphs)

 
Final shot of the Rockies. And my how we love the beauty of the Rockies. Headed south to the Great Sand Dunes.
 
Out in the absolute middle of nowhere, we came across this shrine sitting back off the road.  It looks like it is a tribute to some area Indians that have died recently.  Pretty neat all of the items left. There was a special ceremony of sorts a few years back.






Great Sand Dunes were pretty spectacular!  You are travelling along surrounded by high desert and mountains; in the absolute middle of nowhere are these sand dunes!

Shortly after leaving the dunes we headed right into a desert rain storm!
 




Oh lookie, Snow! It started snowing pretty bad, and I was a bit scared of how our trip going back north was going to go.




I had to borrow this picture from the internet because it was snowing so bad it was whiteout conditions!  Thank you whoever you are that had nice weather and the time to take this nice picture :)

 

 


 
We hit snow and sleet AGAIN going through Curecanti.  Ryan is squinting trying to take the selfie because the sleet/snow was pelting us in the face.





 
 
The Black Canyon of the Gunny didn't look so black today!  By the time we got here, the weather was much better.  We were fortunate enough to catch the storm at elevation and get snow, but as we dropped in elevation west of Curecanti the storm had moved east.


 







 

 


 





 
Leaving Colorado NM the ranger told us that there are various places that petroglyphs have been identified in the Waving Hands National Recreation Area on CO 139.  There are no real signs, just a 8.5X11 piece of paper that describes the approximate locations of the petroglyphs by mile marker number.  Pretty neat little adventure.  We found a few.  It was getting late and the sun was setting while we were on our hunt.  Glad we stopped...caught a very spectacular sunset with a lot of depth.
 
 
 



 
 

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