Trip rewind: day four

The last day of the adventure. I was pretty sad to leave, I won't lie. Traipsing about taking photos had been so much fun!

It was a leisurely wake up day (I had stuffed myself full of broasted chicken and chicken wings at a place called Cuckoo's at Tom's recommendation. He said they have the best, meatiest, tastiest wings around. He wasn't fucking lying. I ate myself stupid, and I didn't feel bad about it at all. I did get fairly fucking wasted on the evening of day three, however. So I woke up at around 9, packed everything up, took a shower, and got checked out of the hotel (not in that exact order). This day was the day I had been looking the most forward to, though. Because day four meant the Great Sand Dunes National park. Oh my goodness. I've been aching to go here for AGES. And it was well worth the extremely taxing drive (which included a two hour stop in Wolf Creek Pass due to an accident, because we were driving in a blizzard. Colorado is so fucking weird). The light was JUST hitting golden hour when we arrived. The sand dunes are kind of difficult to spot from the road, but you can see them the further into the park you drive (which is me playing Captain Obvious, and I'm just swell at it). I saw a lonesome looking tree at the entrance to the park, ran out into the field to take a picture, and stepped in a fucking HUGE pile of very rude, unfriendly cacti. It hurt. But was I going to let that stop me? NO. So I kept on trucking.

Allen told me it looked like something out of American Gods, which is, in short, the best compliment ever. It's fairly mediocre, as far as pictures go, but I stepped in cactus for it, dammit, so I'm going to fucking love it.

And then.

DUNES.

And I lost my shit. I had to wander away so I could openly cry, because holy shit, this place is fucking gorgeous. And amazing. And I can't even explain how fantastic it is to be standing there in person. Hands down, my favorite part of the trip. Let's take a look and see what the ol' finger clicked.

Yes, yes. I GREATLY fucked with that first picture. It's hideously obvious. But I still like it. There's a picture of me taking the picture of the logs...hang on hang on hang on....

I SUFFER FOR MY CRAFT.

The winds were unkind, though. First of all, that sand whipping itself at a camera can and will seriously damage said equipment. Bearing this in mind, I walked with the camera against my hip the entire time. Secondly, please note the lack of jeans on my part. That sand whipping at my legs gave me bite marks. I left the park with four pounds of sand in my shoes, and two layers of skin left on the exposed parts of my legs. WORTH. IT.

I grabbed one more picture of that tree from earlier on my way out:

I have yet to even come close to getting the hang of properly exposing/ISOing/Shutter-speeding those light conditions, but knowing that, I don't mind that photo so much.

And that was that. Home again, home again, jiggedy jig. I was dropped off at my car (which almost got towed while I was gone, but that's a story for another day), got it jumped, and made my way home, where I chattered excitedly with Allen for a few moments before crashing out hard on my couch.

I don't think I really missed anything. That's about the long and short of the trip. I could do an entire post on the food I ate, but I'm not going to. Instead, I'll wrap up the rewind completely.