Our next stop was Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.

Of the time we spent with the Sheffields, this park was my favorite.  Not everyone in the group agreed, however.  For me, it was such a unique place.

The sand dunes were tremendous, like a mountain range themselves.  When we walked on them, I felt like I was somewhere like the Gobi Desert, with an unending landscape of arid sand.

But then you could look up above the dunes and see the green mountain ranges reaching in the background with snow-capped peaks.  It was an interesting contrast.  I could swear I was on the set of a Star Wars movie.

The kids rented some boards to sled down the dunes.

The boards were more fun in theory than in actual practice.  None of us were very good at riding them, except Benny.  I guess his light weight helped him glide down the dunes rather than crashing head over bum like the rest of us.  We did get a lot of laughs, though.

I would have liked to make the trek up to the very top of the dunes, but we ran out of water and the natives were getting restless again.

It was hot and dry.  The wind was whipping up thick clouds of dust.  The sand was omnipresent.  We looked like snickerdoodle cookies by the time we walked out of that place.

For weeks to come, we would be cleaning the sand out of our shoes, ears and nether-regions.