Forever Free

Hello again!

Sorry about the lack of pictures in the last post.  Using Dirk’s computer with a cellular connection makes it challenging to get the pictures as well as the message posted.  We are in Salida, CO tonight.  We spent the day on Sunday in Taos, NW.  We found a small church in town that we went to.  I truly felt moved when I looked at the bulletin and saw they were singing “How Great is Our God.”  Seemed like a sign that Zach was with us. 

After we left Taos, we drove north toward Colorado and crossed the Rio Grande Gorge.  Really deep gorge that appears out of nowhere!  We stopped and walked out on the bridge to take a closer look.  It is 650 feet deep…Lexi couldn’t make it out on the bridge far and I had a hard time taking pictures.  Made me dizzy!! 

Our next stop was San Luis State Park in Colorado.  This campground was lacking trees, but had some really amazing views.  It is right next to the Great Sand Dunes and many majestic snow topped mountains.  It was really windy and cold when we arrived, which really limited any exploring.  We also found the mosquito population was quite healthy there! 

Thankfully, when we woke up this morning the wind had left and the sun was out.  It was still chilly 60-70’s when we left to visit the Great Sand Dune National Park.  These sand dunes are amazing.  The tallest in North America and are sandwiched in between the mountains and the flat plains.  They seem really out of place.  The tallest dune is 750 feet…we did not climb that one, but we did climb one that was 650 feet tall!!  Talk about a workout!  We climbed over an hour to get to the top.  Some parts were so steep we could only take twenty steps before we collapsed panting for air.  The altitude was not helping the breathing either.  When we finally reached the top the view was beautiful, but my camera would not work because apparently digital cameras don’t really like sand.  The lens seems to be jammed but thankfully I could still get the pictures off of it that I took on the way up. As we climbed I looked up and saw a rainbow in the middle of the sky.  I know I was not hallucinating because Dirk and Lexi saw it too .  Then when we reached the top, we saw of all things two butterflies playfully flying all around.  They did not seem to belong there with all that sand.  I took these as more signs and truly felt God has been surrounding us with beautiful messages of His presence and reassurance He is always with us.

I am happy to say the trip down was MUCH faster and MUCH MUCH easier.  Lexi ran down  most of the way and was waiting for us at the bottom.  We did not take Binx with us up the dune, but we did let him play in the streams that run along the bottom and he had a blast doing that.  We were all very tired when we finished and were glad our next stop was only an hour away.  This RV park is right next to the Arkansas River.  We can watch the river running past out our front window.  Tomorrow we are headed toward Colorado Springs.  We are planning on staying there a few days to see the Garden of the Gods, Royal Gorge and Pikes Peak. 

That’s it for now.  We are all looking forward to our beds tonight.  Until next time…

love to all,

Sherry