GREAT SAND DUNES NATIONAL PARK - SOUTH PARK CITY

And there's the fully-grown crack that I had to see for the next five days of driving.
Another early morning drive to a national park.
This one is the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.
To get to the dunefield, you have to cross Medano Creek. It is extremely shallow. I crossed to the dune with my shoes one but took them off on the way back.
The sand comes from the San Juan Mountains, 65 miles to the west and the nearby Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the east.
Some people hiked over the dune.There is no way I was going to do that. Sand is sand, so I just stayed in the area closer to the creek.
Some little creature treked across the dune, leaving these tracks.
These are my tracks.
Just make believe you're a tiny little seed, a tiny little seed that's reaching up to meet your need.
Those are the Sangre de Cristo Mountains from about as far as I went intot the dune.
The Visitor Center was not open when I arrived. Neither was the entrance gate, so I did not get to use my Annual Pass for the entrance fee.
From the Great Sand Dunes, it was north to...
South Park City. It is not a ghost town, but a history park with old building simulating a western town. This is the Visitor Center.
The first thing to see is Father Dyer Chapel.
The chapel area is not very large. Just a few small pews and an organ.
A smokehouse.
This was originally the Summer Brewery, where South Park Lager was once produced.
Most of the buildings at the park were relocated from other places. I will indicate those that are in their original location. The first two are the smokehouse and the brewery.
Rache's Place was a saloon originally located not far to the northwest in Alma, Colorado.
Just imagine a friendly barkeep slinging whiskey while customers play poker.
Around the turn of the century, Charles Craig was commissioned to paint this nude for a fashionable saloon on Colorado Avenue, where she resided in a special private room. Patrons were required to pay for a viewing. Whether Craig was paif for his work or if the painting settled a bar tab is unknown. Eventually, the untitled painting made its way to the Antlers Hotel in Colorado Springs. In 1959, the hotel manager donated it to South Park City for its grand opening as a project of the Colorado 'Rush to the Rockies' Centennial celebration where she would be exhibited in Rache's Place. It was then that the mysterious lady gained her now famous name, Rachel.
This pioneer home is original to the town.
Sit in the front room after a long day of whatever your job is and listen to your lovely lady wife playing some hymns on the organ.
After she made you dinner of course.
The Summer Saloon was also original to the town. My guess is that is is related to the Summer Brewery we saw earlier.
Garo cabin on the right was restored as a wash house and contains laundry equipment. Park County Courthouse on the left was constructed in 1862 in what was then the county seat, Buckskin Joe. Yes, the county seat of Park County was a town called Buckskin Joe. It was originally named Laurette, a much more sensible name.
Inside the courthouse building doesn't look much like a courthouse.
The white building is the office of the South Platte Dredging Company and the other is an assay office.
Assay stuff.
The purpose of parks like this is to give visitors a feeling of what an old western town might have looked like.
A hearse and a sleigh. The transportation shed and wagon barn are original.

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