We pack the truck hastily, anxious to beat some of the holiday weekend traffic. Tent, field stove, sleeping bags, and enough food and clothing to keep us comfortable for a week are stowed for our two-night adventure to someplace we had never been before. We’re “winging it” with no campground reservation (supposedly campgrounds at the Dunes were first-come-first-serve), but hey, it’s another McHargue adventure.

The three hour drive toward the southwest corner of Colorado is spectacular. Fields of glowing yellow wildflowers meet our gaze by the roadside and pull our vision out to miles of craggy, snow-topped mountains. Dramatic cloud formations, carelessly hung here and there, allow for selective and ever-changing highlighting of all below.

We all laugh as we pass a rickety hand-made sign in one of the beautiful fields: “CLEAN DIRT WANTED.”

Two hours into the drive, we start spotting red dirt devils off in the semi-arid plains, mini whirlwinds of red earth, little warnings of what the weekend weather would hold.

We could have turned around after the three hour drive and come right home and I would have considered the adventure worthwhile, but we make it to the campground and are anxious to get settled. Then another sign: “CAMPGROUND FULL.” Pooh. So we enter the campground sign-in gee-gaw-laden mini-store to ask where the next closest campground might be, and ignoring the snickers of the self-righteous-already-had-their-tents-set-up-weenie-buying people behind me, are told that the closest campground at San Luis Lakes is also completely booked.

Well, this being a McHargue family adventure (and all McHargue family adventures have happy endings), the just-bought-my-firewood gal in front of me turns around and says, “We double-booked at San Luis Lakes…would you like to have our extra site?” !

San Luis Lakes is just ten miles from the Dunes, the lake providing a scenic vista over which to view the distant sandy monsters. Almost, but not quite adequate half-dome shelters on the windward side of each camp site provide some respite from the ever-blowing winds that have made the sand dunes what they have come to be: Great. We will visit them the next morning after a campfire dinner and a good night’s sleep.

But first, the tent must go up! Remember those little whirling warnings I mentioned earlier? Well, imagine the fun our Winnebago-camping neighbors had watching as all four of us struggled to secure our parachute-like tent to the ground in what were increasingly becoming gale force winds. The tent set up, and the remainder of the truck contents thrown inside to hold it down, we are ready for our dinner.

No camping experience is complete without the traditional beans and hot dogs, but the s’mores and campfire will have to wait until the next night because of the high winds. After dinner is consumed and cleaned away, we watch the dunes disappear into darkness as the sun sets behind us, extinguishing one brilliant cloud after another until there is nothing left but night.
And so, to bed! After many years of adventures that find the four of us sleeping way too close to one another, I make the noble sacrifice and set up my bag next to my kindred sleeper (the only one in the family who flounces more than I do), Jacob. So the order on the floor is: Jacob, me, Mike, and Nick. After much silly conversation and laughter over assorted beanie-weenie after-blasts, and after helping Nick find and eliminate a sharp branch under the tent that threatens to maim him lest he repose upon it, Mike falls asleep instantly. How he can do this, I’ll never figure out, but it certainly is a gift.

I, however, am keenly attuned to my new environment. The wind has died down somewhat, and a cool breeze now passes steadily though our tent, forcing me to delight in the pristine smell of the wilderness. I think about the “Clean Dirt Wanted” sign, and suppress a giggle. Nicholas yawns hugely, and falls asleep. Jacob, who has decided to sleep with his head where the rest of our feet are, eventually finds a comfortable position, occasionally speaking incoherently in what I assume is sleep. The songbird that serenaded us so beautifully all evening now won’t shut up.

And I think that it would be a good thing to fall asleep, because the next day will be full of new adventures. And now it is the next day, and it must be 1 a.m., or 2 a.m., and the damned bird sings on. At about 3 a.m., Jacob rolls over and delivers a startling kick to my chest. I make a mental note of where his feet will be tomorrow night. And now it is 4:20 a.m. and my nocturnal vigilance pays off…in the not-too-distant-distance, a pack of coyotes howls.

If you’ve never heard a pack of coyotes howling somewhere nearby in the obscure, almost morning hours, then you should put it on your list of “things to do someday.” The sound is, surprisingly, both unsettling and serene, lonely and beautiful, tragic and triumphant. After fully appreciating the singular nature of the moment, I think, “Perhaps they’ll find my little songbird!”

And then I fall asleep.

A blazing sunrise and the smell of coffee rouse me (Mike always has coffee ready for me, regardless of the conditions), and I put on the clothes that I took off the previous night. I step out into the morning air, and share a tin bowl of coffee with Mike, mugs nowhere to be found. We call the kids out of the tent for a quick, cold breakfast, not wanting to waste the daylight cooking, and soon we are off toward our destiny with the Dunes.

We decide to learn a little about the Great Sand Dunes National Monument in the visitors’ center before heading into them on foot. They are the tallest sand dunes in the U.S., the tallest being 700 feet (give or take a few grains) above the floor of the San Luis Valley. They cover an area of about 7 by 5 miles, and are changing daily with the winds that have been creating them for thousands of years. I remember the fun I had as a child running up and rolling down the sand dunes on Cape Cod…I look at the sand behemoths ahead of me…and I don’t think I’ll be doing much running here!

First we have to wade through the icy So climb we do. And climb, and climb, and climb…one step up…3/4 slide back…trudging, trudging, trudging in our bare feet, trying to appreciate the free exfoliation treatment, believing that some day we may make it to the 700 foot summit.