Garden of the Gods & Great Sands Dunes NP 5/30

After Fort Collins we drove south on I-25 to Colorado Springs. We stopped in at a Red Robin (yum) for dinner to catch the last Laker vs. Nuggets game, the food and the game were awesome!
We woke up the next morning to hit a couple sights on our drove south to New Mexico. We had been given the suggestion that when driving south from Colorado Springs not to take the I-25 but take the scenic route west and then south on the 285. So because we decided to take the scenic route we had a couple of cool things to see. We stopped in at the Garden of the Gods. Basically it is this park where there are a bunch of crazy rock formations in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. We didn't really have time (or a place to park) to stop and walk around, so we just took a bunch of pictures from the car. Some really amazing looking stuff...
We got back on the road and headed south towards Great Sands Dunes NP. This national park is comprised of huge sand dunes at the base of the Rocky Mountains. Even this description does not help paint the picture of what you see. As we drove the long country road into the park you begin to see the dunes at the base of the mountains. While looking at them when you are driving you do not think that they are that big compared to the huge Rocky Mountains. We arrived at the park and did our usual thing of checking in at the visitor's center. We got the unfortunate news that their campgrounds were full (no biggie we had a back up Walmart plan) so we decided to head to the main dunes entrance.
At the main dune entrance you have to cross a stream to get to the dunes. In the spring most of the snow melts off the Rocky Mountains and makes this stream between the dunes and the mountains. It was really neat, kids playing, making sandcastles, all at the base of these enormous dunes. We took in the incredible sights, took lots of photos, and soaked up some more sun before we decided we were too lazy to hike up the dunes. One of the coolest things we saw were kids running up the dunes with slides, tubes, and snowboards to ride down the dunes with. It was really an interesting place to see, we were really glad we caught it.
Now off to New Mexico before Colorado sucked us in for good!