Ass-Boarding in America

Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado

The wind outside is gusting to about 50 mph. We’re back from Taos and parked next to 30 square miles of 700 foot tall sand dunes. It’s a recipe for a sandstorm. Turns out that sandstorm sunsets are nothing like the lovely pollution inspired sunsets of coastal Florida. They are more of a two-tone blue over brown.

We invented a new sport yesterday while hiking the dunes. We call it ass-boarding. It’s marginally more fun and much less controversial than water-boarding.


It’s tough to climb up a 700 foot sand dune at 8,200 feet. You breathe heavily. Sand gets in your sneakers. You think Lawrence of Arabia. You think camels. You think "Flight of the Phoenix". You start singing...

All day I've faced a barren waste
Without the taste of water, cool water
Old Dan and I with throats burned dry
And souls that cry for water
Cool, clear, water
Keep a-movin, Dan, dontcha listen to him, Dan
He's a devil, not a man
He spreads the burning sand with water…

So today we got up early and went down to Taos in New Mexico on the edge of the Taos Indian Reservation.. The most interesting thing we saw was the Taos Pueblo. The Pueblo has been continuously inhabited for 1,000 to 1,200 years. It’s hard to exactly date the construction. Regardless it’s the oldest continuously inhabited community in North America.


The buildings are divided by the Red Willow Creek, which flows down from the sacred Blue Lake in the mountains to the East. Only members of the community are allowed into the Reservation area that includes the lake. The only modern addition to these buildings is doorways. The original adobe structures were entered through holes in the roof. Ladders were pulled up when invaders appeared.

The Taos Indians closely guard their language and traditions. They revolted against Spanish rule in 1680 and remained free for about 30 years. In 1847 they attempted to over throw the U.S. Government and managed to kill the first governor of New Mexico, Charles Bent. Retribution was swift.


We had lunch in the Doc Martin’s Restaurant near the Taos Plaza. We both ordered coffee and Lamb Wraps. Tomorrow we head for the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.


Here are a few more pictures of Taos.

Good Reasons to Get Out of Dodge

Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado

We’re not in Kansas anymore. We’re at 8200 feet in the middle of a huge high valley surrounded by the snow-capped Rocky Mountains. There are four nearby mountains that exceed 14,000 feet.

We spent yesterday looking at Dodge City in Kansas. The main employer seems to be Cargill Foods. They truck in 10,000 head of cattle a day to be slaughtered and processed. There are massive cattle concentration camps everywhere where cattle are packed in feedlots to fatten up amid gigantic piles of stinking black dung.

Dodge is a poor, sad, shabby place now. The saloons and bawdy houses are gone. The buffalo hunters, steely eyed lawmen, gamblers and cattle drive cowboys are only a memory. The old Front Street stores and saloons burned down long ago.

We visited the Boot Hill Museum. The old gravesites have been preserved. It’s the kind of place you go to see to be sure you haven’t missed anything. The answer is no. That’s about it for Dodge.

This morning the stars are out, the sky is clear and the moon is down. I glance up and see the Dipper, the Navigator’s Triangle, the Milky Way burning a swath across the sky and Sagittarius in the South.
The temperature warmed up into the seventies yesterday and dropped to 22 F. during the night. The dunes here are the tallest in North America. They are most beautiful at sunrise and sunset when the colors and shadows form strange shapes.

We’ll do some hiking in the Park today and then take the Toyota on a daytrip to Taos, New Mexico Tuesday. Taos is only 100 miles south. We might not have another chance to see it.

Mrs. Phred said she loved me last night after I got the satellite tuned in so she could watch tennis. She reminded me that I had threatened to make her set up the satellite because I thought it was a bad idea. “Right! Like that’s going to work!” I told her. We laughed.

With longitude, latitude, azimuth and altitude precisely established in three widely separated locations, I can easily find the satellite now from anywhere.

Here are a few more pictures of the dunes and surrounding area.