It's not the Chattanooga Choo Choo

Nope, it's the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad!

This is a trip that we have wanted to do for many years.  The excursion on the narrow gauge railroad goes between Antonito, Colorado and Chama, New Mexico, passing from state to state 11 times along the way.  The 64 railroad miles is an all day trip on the train,but a short 1.5 hour ride on the bus to the original departure point.  You have a choice of starting in Chama or Antonito.  As we traveled, we referred quite often to the map that was passed out by the docent.

Patty and Ron Schorr, our friends from Boyd Lake, went with us.  As you can tell from the photo above, we were all dressed for cooler temperatures.  The weatherman had predicted 100% chance of rain for both Chama and Antonito that day.  We came prepared with jackets and an umbrella.  Boy, we were lucky that he was wrong!  The day was partly overcast, but it didn't rain until were were almost back at our hotel in Alamosa.

We traversed many types of landscapes during the trip.  The Lava Tank that is no longer used is located on high desert, with mostly sage brush dotting the hillsides.

Many places in the lower elevations had an abundance of blooming plants, including Blue Lupine,Scarlet Skyrockets, Fleabane and an assortment of yellow wildflowers.

As we climbed in elevation, we were surrounded by Pine and groves of Aspen trees.

 Photo opportunities were in abundance!  The open air car was packed but since there were plenty of open windows and space in several train cars, I didn't have to vie for a place there.  Leaning out the windows was no problem, except for an occasional cinder in my eyes.

As the train stopped to refill it's water tank, Don and Patty leaned out the window.

Here is a view of the 600 foot drop going over the Toltec Gorge, along with a sign near the trestle.

We were nearing the town of Osier, where we were served lunch.  The train coming from Chama had already arrived at the station.

No box lunches here!  Everything was homemade, and you could have turkey dinner with all the trimmings, a meatloaf dinner, soup, salad, choice of desserts and drinks.  If you went away hungry, you had to be a very, very picky eater.

The train continued to climb up to the town of Cumbres, which stands at an elevation of 10,015 feet above sea level.

Finally, after 6 hours, we reached our destination of Chama. If you look closely, Santa was waiting for us. Obviously, his full red suit was too warm for the day, so he opted for a red shirt and shorts instead.  Guess he deserves a vacation too!

Playing in the Sand

Since we were so close to the Great Sand Dunes while staying in Alamosa, we decided to veer a bit out of our way to visit this amazing National park.  This is the view as we drove on the country road in southern Colorado.  The dunes are sandwiched between a high desert landscape and the Sangre de Cristo (blood of Christ) Mountains.

The visitor center had a very interesting 20 minute film that the four of us watched before heading out to the humongous pile of sand.

Usually during this time of the year, there is no water.  But lots of summer rain in the past couple of weeks made the Mendano Creek run again.  There were a lot of families heading up the dunes, their children carrying sleds for sliding down the sandy hills.

 Patty and I posed for a picture before heading up the hill.  We were both thankful that the day was cool and the sand was warm, not HOT!  As we reached the top of the dune closest to us, the wind was blowing and we could feel bits of sand hitting our legs.  Our partners were not as "daring".  They stayed behind in the parking lot.  Both Patty and I ran down the hill and thankfully kept our balance.  I sure didn't want sand in my hair or in my clothes.

Ron and Don's view:

And this is what we looked like as Patty and I headed back to meet up with them:

That's okay.  We still enjoyed our time there.  We were thankful that the Lord blessed us with azure blue skies and sun, especially since the weather predictions were quite different!