The End

The last week of the trip has all been a blur. I squeezed Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam into my stops, then returned to Slab City for one more night of free camping. I made the rounds once again in San Diego and LA. Today I head back to Pacifica and I think this is a good place to stop the blog.
Final Finger Counter: 0. Thank you America.
Final License Plate Counter: Lost track. But probably about 55 or so.
I wanted to say thanks to everyone who read the blog. This trip was amazing, and writing this blog helped me absorb what was happening. The adventure of daily living continues.

Delays, delays

So by the time I got back to Bandelier on Saturday evening my oil light was on. Every mechanic I've ever been to has told me under no circumstances should I ever let the oil get too low in this van. So I waited out Sat and Sunday night at Bandelier. I don't really like having to repeat stops, but I had no choice. There's no place to get your oil changed on Sunday. All in all, Bandelier is a pretty nice place to be stuck for a couple of days.
I found a Jiffy Lube first thing this morning and got back on track. I did make an effort today to see some hot air balloons in Albuquerque, but it's Monday morning so I guess nobody's flying today. Oh well.

The Great Sand Dunes

I spent the last two nights at the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado. Not only do I love this park, but I also love the whole San Luis Valley. It was one of the most beautiful and interesting places I've been to. A great national park, mountains, farms, monasteries and UFO lookout towers. I could spend a week there.
I hiked to the tallest dune in North America. 750 ft. And hiking up sand is no easy task. I'm still shaking sand out of my shoes. The view from the top was absolutely worth it. When I left this morning I had to drive extra carefully because there were so many deer next to the road.
Today I'm checking out Taos. By tomorrow I expect to be in Arizona again.

Denver

So much to do when you're in a city. It's been great having Kolleen guide me to all the cool places. We saw a couple of breweries, although Coors wasn't giving tours the day we were there.
We also went to a couple of awesome book stores, checked out Boulder, which is a really fun town, and wandered around town for a while. We also had Colorado-style pizza, which I learned is really really good pizza with a super thick crust. When you get down to just the crust you put honey on it and eat it. My favorite meal though, was Tuesday night when Kolleen's aunt made us enchiladas. It was so great to have a home-cooked meal again! It's also been great staying in a house instead of a van for once.
That brings me to the point where I think I'm ready to head back west. Money's getting a bit low, I'm running out of stuff to see along the Mexican boarder and it's too cold to go much farther north. BUT, that doesn't mean I've run out of stuff to do. There's still much more to see on the way back, so I intend to keep writing.

It's COLD!

After learning that Kolleen will be out of town next weekend, I did a mad dash up to Denver to visit mid-week. On the way I got a great view of the Rockies. So amazing! West coasters: if you think the Sierras are big, you have no idea. I camped one night at a little state park that was sunny and not too cold during the day. But when I woke up the next morning snow was starting to fall so I got the heck off the mountain fast! Snow comes pretty fast when it wants to.
It's certainly a colder country up here, but for the next couple of nights I have a warm house to stay in. Many thanks to Mary and Kevin Davis for letting me stay!

Plates

It's been brought to my attention that I've been neglecting my License Plate Counter, so here it goes:
Chihuahua, Mexico
Quebec, Alberta
Kentucky, Oklahoma, Kansas
That's all I can remeber for now

Bandelier

Ever heard of Bandelier National Monument? Me neither. But I found it on a map and camped there for two nights. It's a beautiful park. There are cliff dwellings, archeological sites, they have Pueblo people there doing pottery demonstrations and lots of wilderness. I did a hike past two waterfalls to the Rio Grande that was so beautiful! All the trees there were changing from green to yellow. It was one of my favorite hikes so far.
I'm now getting ready to do some urban hiking. My next three days will bring me to Santa Fe, Albuquerque and Taos. There's a hot air balloon festival going on in Albuquerque this weekend that I'm looking forward to. I talked to this older guy at Bandelier who said there are only two things in life you have to do: ride in a hot air balloon and go to Alaska. He was dead serious too.