Epic western trip, part 1

Prepare for a very much abridged travel log of our recently completed, 2+ week epic western voyage!  We (meaning the kids and I) left Monticello early on the first day of August to start this trip--Hope would join us later en route.  We drove hard the first day to make time, stopping only briefly for food, restroom breaks, and an occasional picture, such as the Great Plains overlook we found at one rest area in the panhandle of Texas (pictured above).  Our destination, about 800 miles later, was the small town of Tucumcari, New Mexico (for those of you familiar with the animated movie "Cars"; think Radiator Springs...).  We arrived early enough to visit a really cool if small dinosaur museum in Tucumcari:

We pushed hard to get to the Rocky Mountains to start visiting some of the many national parks, monuments, forests, and historic sites we'd see on this trip.  The next morning, we made our first stop at Pecos National Historic Site, which protects a historic Spanish mission and the native community that thrived there for centuries (mostly before the Spanish arrived).  The picture below shows the second of the mission churches being stabilized and restored:

The kids really enjoyed climbing down into the two kivas (circular, belowground ceremonial rooms) available for access:

The ability to see how these structures were built was really eye-opening, and the kids had big fun going up and down the ladders:

It is amazing to me how much of the original mud brick structures remained of this church, built during the 18th Century:

We left Pecos and headed into northern New Mexico, making a few stops along the way.  We spent a while along this river watching raft after raft of people navigate the rapids:

We later went up the canyon and found a pretty trail to walk in the desert, which was a surprisingly pleasant mid-70s temperature:

This roughly mile-long hike took us to some ancient petroglyphs, pecked into the "desert varnish" covering of these rocks probably thousands of years ago:

We stayed the night in Taos, and departed the early next morning for our next adventure--riding a steam train!

The Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railway (http://cumbrestoltec.com/) takes passengers on a very scenic 60+ mile ride on a narrow gauge railroad from the high New Mexico desert into southern Colorado.  In the process, we wound through sagebrush desert:

into open ponderosa pine forests, followed by more closed canopy spruce, fir, aspen, and pine on our way to a 10,000+ foot high mountain pass before dropping back down in elevation.  This trip took half a day to complete, and included a cafeteria style lunch and plenty of time for pictures and reflections along the way:

They had an open top car that you could ride in to get a broader experience:

We actually took the train ride one way, then caught a passenger bus for the hour-long ride back to our starting point and our van.  We continued our trip into Colorado, which provided our next destination--Great Sand Dunes National Park (below):

As the name suggests, Great Sand Dunes are huge piles of sand that have accumulated at the base of these high mountain peaks.  As with most tourists to this spot, we hiked part way out into the dunes to get a sense of the scale of these piles of sand; the kids really enjoyed tumbling down the slopes:

I think the thing the kids liked the most was playing in the very shallow stream that flowed along the base of the dunes--they had loads of fun digging in the sand and redirecting the flow:

Through this point, it was still just me and the kids--Hope wouldn't join us until the next day in Durango, Colorado, where we were headed so I could give a talk at a old-growth forest meeting.  Our adventure was really just starting, but you'll have to wait for the next update--I have to go get ready for my next business trip!