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| Great Sand Dunes Nation Park & Preserve - Southern Colorado |
This year was a real disappointment for us. We went to Chama with high hope of a really good season. I had prepared trip mileage guides and had an abundant amount of pins on hand to to give our riders a pleasant and meaningful ride. All came to naught as my assigned trips spread from once weekly to over 10 days in one instance. Nearing the last of our time there we decided to leave early for home. The pins will be distributed to family and friends and the mileage guides went to file 13.
I was approached regarding the possibility of scheduling docents but in the end declined feeling they needed a younger person to do that job and I didn't need the stress. We attempted the purchase of a small real-estate lot in Chama but that fell through. In the postmortem G and I found it difficult to justify the time and expense associated with traveling to Chama for the paucity of time actually spent doing what we had planned for.
During this trip we did enjoy traveling to Silverton and several other places in Southern Colorado thus, we have re-oriented our travel plans accordingly. Next year we will make several short trips west instead of a single long stay. We will also be staying at a RV park near Antonito, Colorado instead of Chama. Our time will be spent exploring places G and I have discussed for many years. While focusing on Colorado we also hope to finally see the upper Hudson River Valley and Vermont next year. As for the Cumbres and Toltec, well, if the opportunity to docent on a trip arises I will certainly take it however, based on this year that seems a remote possibility.
The research work for the Cumbres and Toltec is finished and now on the shelf gathering dust. All in all it was fun for one year and not so much the next, time to move on. I have cleaned work space in my little "office" to pick-up incomplete projects shelved back in 2015 which remained to this day buried under piles of research until revealed, exactly where I stopped.
I will continue to cover our travel's and my irrational rants on occasion but the site will look a bit different as you will notice.
