This was our last morning among the mountains at 8,000 feet.  Sand Dunes National Park was such a unique landscape with mountains, forests, wetlands, and desert sand dunes.   It is so unique they even have a beetle that lives no where else in the world except here.  I’m not much of a beetle fan, the insects not the music, but this was one cool looking beetle.

Brooke noticed that on the other side of the van the trees had created a perfect arrow with the sunlight.  She said it was pointing to the Sand Dunes Trail and that they should go on it again.  Funny girl.  The kids said goodbye to their last bear box for a while.  They love pretending to be doggies in the bear box.

Everything was soaked from the night’s rain and cold temps.  When I cleaned out the tent and then went to wrap up the tent I noticed how beaten up the tent bag looked from the dirt, sand, rain, and overall traveling abuse.  I said to Scott, “This is a new low for this bag.”  Scott not one to miss a good setup when he sees one responded, “I’ve been thinking that about you for a long time now.”  Everyone was a comedian today. :-)   We headed down the road on 160 again this time towards Kansas.  We stopped for a bathroom break and wound up meeting some very interesting bike packers.

They had been on at least ten different bike packing adventures together.  The bike packers said that the ATV traffic has increased so much recently that they were struggling to enjoy the back country trails as much as they used.to.  They were riding ridge steel frame bikes with older downhill rims because they have found they hold up better than standard rims. They shared some of their adventures and we headed back down the road through Dodge, Kansas.  We were looking for a sign that said, “Leaving Dodge,” but we didn’t have any luck.  We did find out later that such a sign does exist somewhere in Dodge.  Next time… :-)

We arrived at Clark State Lake, about forty miles from Dodge at 7 pm and quickly cooked up and ate up some spaghetti. There was no cost to camp at this state park, but there was also no water to drink.  No worries about wet, cold clothes here, welcome to ninety degree weather!  We lost at least 5,000 feet in elevation today.

Brooke finished her sewing project today on the long drive to Kansas.  She did a great job for her first solo sewing project. We met our camp neighbors who shared some ice cold spirits and some warm sun shower water. Our camping neighbor was doing his best to get Brooke to break out of her shell and talk to him.  So…he brought over a barely breathing catfish.  That warmed Brooke right up!  No.  Not really. It was fun to watch for the rest of us though.  I caught sight of a beautiful spider web in a tree, and so I took a picture.

The kids enjoyed playing soccer, catching insects, and making Lego homes for their new pets. At 9:15 we headed out for a half hour canoe ride on Clark Lake.  The beautiful sunset gave way to a peaceful waxing crescent moon and stars.

We drifted off to sleep lulled by the summer sounds of the bullfrog and crickets.