Framedlight

 We had some lunch in Browns Canyon and then left to drive north to a small place called Evergreen, not far from Denver, where we would be spending our last night in the US. The afternoon sky was stormy as we rolled through the miles. Evergreen had a large lake next to it where we walked the next morning, killing time before we drove into Denver for our flight home. It was very cold and part of the lake was frozen over. We relinquished the Ford at the airport and spent some time in an open lounge area from where we had a view over the arrivals and departures. Finally as the sun was setting we boarded and took off for Manchester and home. And that was it. Six weeks in the USA was over and only the diary to create! Coming in to the UK Over London

  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!  

  We were driving north through Colorado towards Denver to catch our plane back to the UK and had stopped in Alamosa the previous night so that we could visit Great Sand Dunes the following day.  It was a great decision. These sand dunes, although they lack the whiteness of the dunes in New Mexico, make up for it in spades by the relative wildness of their situation. The park is not so ordered and neat as the White Dunes but feels a lot more natural. As we drove through the San Luis Valley towards the dunes they gradually emerged from the base of the mountains. These are the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, a southerly extension of the Rockies which run down along the eastern side of the Rio Grande rift all the way to to Santa Fé in New Mexico. The dunes are the highest in North America and are nowhere near the sea. The Saint Luis Valley once held a number of lakes which receded around 440,000 years ago, leaving behind large sand sheets. The winds in the valley blew the sand into a...