Rich Road Trip

National Parks are the fodder for postcards and Instagram posts. Beauty spills from streams and peaks in a way where your eyes feel like poor tools to receive all that’s there. That was not our family’s experience at the Great Sand Dunes National Park. The park felt other-worldly, but it was closer to Tatooine than the Tetons. Mountains of sand up to 750 feet tall make up the largest dunes in North America. But there’s little transition in landscape from the sage floor of the San Luis Valley to the 30 square miles of dunes, making you feel like you stumbled onto an abandoned set from the Star Wars movie that was never funded. 

Our elementary aged kids had been looking forward to visiting the dunes for months. I’d imagine my son envisioned a sandbox of mythic proportions and my daughters hoped for a place to sled in flip flops not snow boots. The dunes delivered on both counts. We frolicked in the flour soft sand and sledded down hills and bowls and funnels in the largest playground ever built. 

Our time, however, wasn’t without challenge. Reaching the dunes required a longer than expected hike where the unstable sand swallowed your foot and caused your calves to twinge with exertion. We also visited the park in the evening in order to avoid the hot temperatures of the afternoon. The weather was wonderfully overcast and cool, and not-wonderfully gusty. The wind blew unhindered across the valley, combing sand off the dunes and flinging it with abandon. Being complete sand dunes rookies, we hadn’t considered this possibility, and four out of five of us wore shorts. Sand stung our legs on any exposed dune that we walked. 

Despite our poor clothing and the long hike, our kids rallied. They trudged head down and eyes closed through the windy sections, then flashed sand stained grins as they sledded. A year ago the challenging conditions would have warranted a full-scale meltdown from our two youngest. Complaining would escalate into tears and culminate in protest. But that didn’t happen. They were up for the challenge and relished the adventure of discovering a new place. 

We returned to our pickup wind-weary, but not an ounce disappointed. Having a vague sense of the wild adventure we just completed, I high-fived our kids and turned the volume up on a rowdy song that had become the unofficial benediction to our summer outings. Dashboards and head rests became tambourines as we pounded the off-beats along with Zach Bryan and his band. 

As we drove back to our campsite the steel colored sky melted yellow in the west. The valley was wide enough to watch three separate thunderstorms with their skirts of rain and sporadic lightning. Like a ladle that was too small, our eyes dripped wonder, unable to hold the shades of the darkening sage floor and the shifting navy in the clouds above. 

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This trip to the dunes was part of a camping vacation through Southwest Colorado. This portion of the state is delightfully inconvenient for the heavily populated Front Range, and seems to be known best by hardy natives and migratory second home owners. Numerous times my wife and I rounded a corner to find a picturesque home too big to call a cabin. Usually the sprawling home was nestled next to a river and a meadow - each teeming with trout and hay. They were the kind of houses Taylor Sheridan would use in the next season of Yellowstone. 

“I guess I could live there,” I’d deadpan to my wife, with words riddled in envy. 

The inference was clear: those people had it made, their life was the good one, they were rich because of what they owned. 

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As we drove back from the dunes, our vacation home was a 20 year-old pop-up camper, not a 20-bed mansion. Our bodies wore sand and smile equally. We drove away filled by a grace received, not an asset acquired. In that moment wealth was tilted, and the currency of creation and company was seen and treasured. I had 12 dollars in my wallet, and my bank account looked no different, but as we belted our favorite song and drove across a valley caught between evening and night, I was rich. 

When in your life have you been most rich?

Jesse French, Executive Director