Great sand and snow

Alamosa is south of Denver and much warmer. It fells like we've headed back into Arizona but the snowy mountains reassure us we haven't. It's a small town with zero to offer. We're here because of what is on the outskirts, Great Sand Dune National Park. Not only does Colorado have world class snowboarding on huge jagged peaks it also has the largest sand dunes in mainland America. Upon entering a motel we notice signs on the doors detailing a water problem in town. It turns out the council had discovered the town water was contaminated and are now in the process of dumping serious amounts of chlorine into the town's system. This means the water is undrinkable as well as inadvisable to wash in and brush your teeth in. We'll be staying just the one night then.
It's a bit out in the middle of nowhere here, we passed just two tiny hamlets in 70 miles to get here, so away from the main street it looks a bit tired, like the inhabitants, but there's a healthy mix of Mexicans and Americans here as the Mexican border used to be north of here. But, there isn't a great deal out here. Let's get to those sand dunes then!
You can see the dunes from the road into town but it's not until you drive the 15 miles toward them that you realise how big they are. Even then it's deceiving until you're stood at the foot of them. Of course we had to climb them. It took around an hour and a half to get to the highest dune in North America. The sand gets deep in places and the wind gets stronger nearer the top spitting up sand in your face regularly. All this made harder by carrying my transport back down, the snowboard.
Great views at the top run on for 30 square miles of sand dunes toward the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It really does look fake and difficult to comprehend it's size but it's bloody windy and I'm sliding down this thing on the steepest grade I can find. There's a few people out on the dunes but we've been alone now for a while and don't really come close to anybody until we reach the car. Some families are out with their sleds and trying to get some speed up on the dunes. I get about 10 runs down various dunes until reaching the flat sands to where water running from mountain snowmelt is creeping along it's way. In a couple of weeks this will become a raging torrent, well almost. It'll still only be a few inches deep but rushing fast. The river is in fact a phenomena. It's pulsating motion has scientists intrigued and so forth and so on.
Beneath the large grains on the dunes is snow. Yep, snow. Climbing out of a large sand shaped funnel the sand shifts and white glistening snow appears. Odd but true. It's hard to describe this place as after all it's just tons of sand being constantly shaped by the whistling winds around the mountains. It does mean that this landscape is ever changing. If you went today the place will be different, the dunes could have grown or receded and the river could be pulsing away to it's own beat. What an amazing place.
So, what now? A couple of days of driving the flat plains of middle America. Into Kansas it is then.