The Worth of a Photo

     Hope ya'll enjoyed your labor day weekend. I did too, which is why this post is a day behind when it's usually been put up Monday.

     I had quite a few idea for what I wanted to do with this particular blog post having gotten the introduction posts out of the way. But I decided something that would perhaps be less wordy and more picturey would be fitting. 

Rain over the Desert by Timothy Reid on 500px

     Over the summer I went on a road trip with my then girlfriend's family to Colorado. This is one of the many pictures and stories I gained from it.

     The day began with the howling of wolves from the valley across from where we wer camping on National Forest land. After trying to get some nice photographs of the wolves we were crammed back into the FJ (a car with a subculture all its own, story for another day) and were off to the mountains.
   
     The FJ is an off road vehicle and it turned out Sam's parents were into off roading so we crossed a mountain range on a washed out rocky path that could only loosely be considered a road.

      While not the smoothest of rides it was worth it for the amazing views which only those with monster trucks for cars, or hikers of course, could see. The valley on the other side was a massive birch forest, which unfortunately had suffered a forest fire but was growing back and was still beautiful.

     The most amazing part of the journey was rounding the last foot hill of the mountain to see a sand dune. A massive sand dune right at the base of the mountain.

     The Great Sand Dunes! It just looks so out of place, but there it was. We parked the car at the base of one of the sandy mounds, to stretch and get lunch. The plan was to go into the park from a different angle and drive around on the sand, but the challenge of climbing a sand mountain was too strong and all male members of the car, myself included, were soon competing as to how high they could go.

     I started at a running start, and made it perhaps 1/20th of the way up before I was out of breath. One cannot truly appreciate how steep it was until trying to climb it. I quickly over took the two others who were carving their names in the sand because I had to reach the top.

     It was high altitude and, lets face it I'm not in the greatest of shape. I was dying. Absolutely dying. I had to stop ever four or five meters just to catch my breath. But I made it all the way to the top. Of the first dune. To look up. At the next dune.

     I might have tried to keep going, if not for the fact that there was a strong breeze at the top of the sand dune. Now I don't know if you've ever been pelted with shards of glass repeatedly, but that's sorta what it felt like when the wind kicked the sand up.

     I managed to slide back down without face planting and after a brief lunch we drove away. It was at the edge of the dunes that I managed to snap this shot as the storms which were keeping the sun from searing up and the sands wet enough we could walk on top without sinking terribly far.

     So the moral of this story is if you ever get the chance to climb to the top of a sand dune, do it. It's worth the view, even if you can't take your camera for fear of sand.

~ Tim