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The Colorado Grahams made it to the end of the school year!!! And relatively unscathed as well! Paul finished his semester with the usual whirlwind and excitement of USAFA senior activities and commencement events. I was invited to go along to a Computer Science Department dinner celebrating their seniors -- it was held at O'Malley's - an awesome hole-in-the-wall Irish pub and cook-your-own-steak place. It's one of our favourite steak places in the Springs so far! He took a few days of leave at the end of the school year to relax and de-stress, but he's already back to planning his classes for fall semester! Working at a high school with only 9th and 10th graders (currently, that is - the school will be expanding every year until it has full 9-12) had some definite benefits this spring. There was not the craziness that comes with having a senior class -- no organizing senior activities (breakfasts, senior gifts, various ceremonies, etc) OR having to plan and organize and actually DO graduation! I'd been a part of graduation planning and senior events every year until this year, and I was thankful to have the break! I'm still working on healing up after I dislocated my shoulder about a month ago. I'm taking things slow (as per directive from my better half and my mom) and will start physical therapy this week. I miss going to the gym like crazy, and can't wait to get back to lifting weights. And now that Colorado has fully bloomed into a gorgeous green spring (with more rain than we've seen in over a decade I'm told), I'm just itching to run to the mountains to hike, trail run, camp, and just feel the sun on my shoulders while taking in incredible views! Paul says that he'll duct tape me to the couch if he needs to, to prevent me from doing more than I should before I'm better. Let's just say I've never watched so much trashy TV in my life! This past month has absolutely been a good lesson in patience for both of us (namely, I'm not very patient, and Paul is basically a saint)! Because I've been going crazy throughout this whole "getting better" process, Paul and I decided to take an impromptu day trip today - the plan being to hop in the car with Rascal and Bandit, drive for about 4 hours and see where we end up. The trip would also involve ice-cream (what road trip would be complete without ice-cream??), and the camera to document our adventures: 
Bandit loves looking out the window & is easily distracted (squirrel?!?!?)!  Rascal also loves staring out the window, but spends the whole car ride deciding which pillow is bigger - his or Bandit's. He kicked her to one side of the car or the other probably a good 10 to 15 times over the course of our travels. (He's sitting on B's bed in the photo, but you can tell he's contemplating his next move over to B's side of the car.) 
Part of the Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range - just gorgeous! 
Our destination: Great Sand Dunes National Park. Supposedly these are the biggest sand dunes in the United States. At first we couldn't tell if the sunlight was just playing tricks with the foothills of the mountains, but sure enough - these are the Sand Dunes - probably 7 miles away. (And easily 40 miles from a town boasting a petrol station - thank goodness for the Prius!!) 
About a mile from the gate, Paul looked at me and said "do you have any cash?" Being part of the National Parks System, the Great Sand Dunes NP would have an entrance fee -- something we totally forgot about (this trip was impromptu, and we didn't really know we were going to end up here, to be fair. I promise we normally are better prepared. I may have dropped out of Brownies in 4th grade, but Paul is an Eagle Scout!) I pulled out my wallet and grabbed 4 very crumpled singles. Paul found two bucks in his wallet, and we both started scrambling through the Prius hoping to find loose change in the cup holders, floor mats, etc. The sign with the admissions fees was tiny - posted on the entrance gate. We were completely prepared to offer a dog in place of any admissions fee that would be more than 6 bucks. As we approached, we felt sure that this spontaneous trip was meant to be, as you can see above. :) Rascal and Bandit are still with us.  We approached the sand dunes - this is an AWESOME dog friendly national park. We didn't realize that the dunes are surrounded by several creeks (that are unusually high due to the rain we've had) that one MUST cross in order to get to the warm sand beyond (it was about 60 degrees at this point and super windy), which we desperately wanted to feel on our bare feet! We also had no towels in the car to use in cleaning up our pups They would almost certainly get filthy - and while it would have been a BLAST to play with them in the water, not having towels would have been a huge, stinky mess (and a loooong stinky drive back to CoS). 
We put the relatively unsandy dogs back in the car and found a nice gentleman to take a quick photo of us. We will plan this a bit better next time, but all (the dogs included) want to return to this awesome park. Camping is just $14 a night, and there are a ton of great trails all over the place! We'll bring cash and towels next time.
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