Day 18 ... Mesa Verde to Kansas and Great Sand Dunes National Park

Today, we left Mesa Verde National Park first thing in the morning. Our goal was to make it to Goodland, Kansas, about 20 miles across the Colorado/Kansas state line.

It was a really long day of driving, as most of the day, we were on single lane highways, that passed through small towns every 7 to 15 miles, requiring us to slow down for the local speed limits. I was really glad when we finally made it to Interstate 70 late this afternoon.

Along the way today, we stopped at Great Sand Dunes National Park, a little known National Park in Southern Colorado.

While Sequoia National Park was about Sequoia trees, Great Sand Dunes National Park is about ... duh ... sand dunes!!!

They're huge!!! The highest one reaches over 750 feet, and is the tallest sand dune in North America. We attempted to climb one known as "High Dune", which is about 650 feet high. We didn't make it too far, as we were on limited time. I'd estimate that we got about 1/3 of the way up, before we turned around.

I will say that running down the dunes sure is a lot more fun than walking up them!!!

Tomorrow, we'll be waking up really early and getting loaded up for a long drive to Eureka, Missouri, which is just West of St. Louis. This is going to be the longest drive of our trip, in terms of mileage, however, since it will be on the interestate almost the entire way, I'm expecting it to take less time than several of the other drives we've taken so far.

That's about it for today, I'll be back again tomorrow.