Camping at Great Sand Dunes National Park

This place was completely unexpected, huge sand dunes in the middle of Colorado. A large valley, the mountains, endless wind and a couple of rivers converge to form these dunes. Some of these are up to 750 ft tall. We camped here for a night while the wind blew the tent nearly out of the ground and the temperature got into the 40's. A contrast to the 100's in Austin.

Boulder Visit

We had great visit with Yuko, Kevin and Kiara in Boulder. There was the obligatory hiking, of course, as well as plenty of great food and craft-brewed beer. And doughnuts, they like doughnuts.

Camping in Ruidoso

We were at the Skyline campground, which was about 5 miles up a dirt road at about 9000 ft. Malin could still text from here. Alexia and Malin were pretty skilled at tent setup and I think we all enjoyed the vault toilets.

Carlsbad

Sorry about the late posts but here are some pics from the Pappas-Mallen family summer road trip. Here are some shots from Carlsbad caverns, including something we called the Devil's nipple.