For the past few days we spent visiting friends in Houston, family in San Antonio, and coworkers in Austin. Texas showed us its brutal summer heat, and we were ready to get out of the state to hopefully some cooler weather in Western Colorado.
We got on the road late, and we woke up for another day of driving in Dalhart Texas, which we discovered was the home of railroad tracks for Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Union Pacific which have tracks running through the center of the town. We continued our journey northwest to Capulin Volcano National Monument, which is located in the northeast corner of New Mexico a few miles from US Highway 64/87.
Capulin is a cinder cone volcano in an area that has been dormant for around 30,000 years. The top of Capulin Volcano is over 8000 feet above sea level and fortunately you can drive your car around the dormant volcano to reach the top. At the top you can hike the Rim Trail around the edge or the Vent Trail into the center. I wasn’t up for a hike though and I spent my time in the parking area enjoying the magnificent scenery of the surrounding area. It was a short but fun stop, and both Jayne and I were glad that we made the journey up the volcano to see it. We probably spent about 20 minutes at the top of the rim near the parking area, and then made our way back down.
When we left Capulin Volcano our next planned stop was Great Sand Dunes National Park, which we estimated was 2.5 hours away from Capulin. Great Sand Dunes has the tallest sand dunes in North America and tremendous views with the mountain scenery in the background.
The views were extraordinary but we ended up cutting our time here short. After the many days of travel, we were feeling a bit under the weather as we arrived. There were lots of people there, and the temperature was more than 90 degrees in the middle of the day with the sun beating down on the hot sand. It took us more than 30 minutes to get ready for a hike with restroom breaks, sunscreen, footwear, and the toddler, and I was (or perhaps we were) already exhausted. As we passed people at the trailhead, no one looked particularly happy. We got out on the sand and quickly realized that Medano Creek was dried up; it was just going to be a brutally hot walk across the sand in the mid-day heat to get to the start of the dune. I had to admit to Jayne that I didn’t think I was up for anything substantive here given how I was feeling, and we ended up packing it back to the car. There was no way I was getting to the top of any dune in my present condition, and we decided to do this park another day.
Jayne finished the drive to Grand Junction as I alternated in the back seat between feeling ill, motion sickness, and excitement at the beautiful Gunnison River along our drive. We actually ended up taking COVID tests the next day and fortunately we were all negative – we had just picked up a cold from really interacting with people for the first time in over a year.
