Framedlight

  Moving on from Salida we were driving north to our next destination and last night in the US. The road followed the Arkansas River for some way. Looking for a walk Alan found a place called Brown's Canyon not far from Salida. As we turned off onto a track to the canyon we saw a snow storm coming across the mountains. Luckily it did not venture on to lower elevations but did look very dramatic. The canyon has been carved out by the Arkansas River and is fairly high, the base lying at 7,300 ft and the park rising to 10,000 ft. The geology is mainly granite but we found some chalky outcrops. It has only recently acquired National Monument status under Obama's presidency. It was a good place to shake off the morning cobwebs.

We had had some lunch looking at the sand dunes then we set out to drive across the Saint Luis Valley and on north towards Salida. The valley floor was very flat but we stopped by an irrigation ditch to look back at the dunes and mountains. It was 86 miles to Salida and we finally arrived in the late afternoon. We were staying in a little motel so drove down into town to try and find something to eat. There was nothing we fancied, and we ended up going into a supermarket and buying some bread and frankfurters as there was a microwave in our room. Oh the glamour of travel!