A quick trip up to Colorado

These were the biggest sand dune I'd seen since I was in the — sit down for this one — the Sahara. The Great Sand Dunes National Park outside Alamosa, Colo., spread for miles and peak at several hundred feet in some places. All of it is set against mountains (some still with snow) exploding out of the flat high plateau that sprawls its way west from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of southern Colorado. At 8,000 feet, the nights are, predictably, cool. The days are another matter. They're hot and tumultuous with storms of towering thunderheads raking their way with booms, lightning forks and sheets of rain across the desert. As I walked into the Jack Dempsey House (yes, that Jack Dempsey) in Manassa, Colo., just an hour or so south of the dunes, the skies opened up, if only for a few minutes. The rain came and fell on the tiny Mormon town that produced one of the world's great fighters. Who knew so much could be found just east of the San Juan Basin? I wonder what treasure lie unearthed there...