Albuquerque, Great Sand Dunes National Park and Salida

After another long drive along seemingly endless straight roads through the desert we began to see huge mountains covered in lush green trees and bushes. We had reached Albuquerque. The drive through the outskirts into the city was beautiful and green, which i wasn't expecting as i thought Albuquerque was a desert city! I must admit that my only knowledge of Albuquerque is from the American TV series Breaking Bad, which i am a tad obsessed with.

We had arranged to stay outside another couchsurfers house but he didn't finish work until 5 so we had a bit of time to spare when we got into the city. What better way to spend it than getting a picture outside Walter White from Breaking Bad's house?! We googled the actual address of the house knowing that the series was filmed in the city. When we arrived i couldn't believe how identical it all looked to what i'd seen on TV. We were really excited and jumped out of the van to get a quick photo in front of the house. Unfortunately our photo op was ruined by the woman who actually lives in Walter White's house, the garage opened as we stood outside and a woman came out arms folded glaring at us and walking down the drive! We ran back into the van and had to get a quick drive by photo instead, which was disappointing. I'm sure that they were paid ALOT of money to have their house used for filming so i feel like they should accept people want to see the house from Breaking Bad as it has somewhat of a global cult following now!

After that excitement we found our couchsurfer host's house and got to have a shower and cook some food. Our host, Kevin, had the most adorable dog ever named Julian who got a lot of attention off both of us. Julian is a service dog and Kevin explained that he helped with his PTSD and a dodgy knee which he had got whilst serving in the Marines in Iraq. Needless to say, especially with Kris in Afghanistan at present, i didn't ask for any more details. We enjoyed a chilled out evening and watched some TV which made a nice change. Kevin's Girlfriend, Maddie asked where we were heading to next. The plan was to go to Colorado Springs for one night before continuing on to the Rocky Mountain National Park. Maddie then told us about a festival in a tiny town called Salida which was in the same direction that we were going and happened to be starting the day we would be there. The festival, FIBark was an annual affair which included live music and lots of rafting races down a white water river through the town. It sounded great and we were very tempted, then Maddie said she had just txt her cousin to see if we could park outside his house and he said it was no problem and he would show us around, it was a done deal!

The next day we headed to Salida, Colorado, but made a quick stop off at the Great Sand Dune National Park. The dunes were hidden between two huge mountain ranges so for a while we thought we must be heading the wrong way as there was no sand! It looked a bit like someone had just dumped a bunch of sand there which had formed dunes as it didn't match any of the surrounding scenery of dramatic snow capped mountains, but there you go! As we drove in we could see a huge storm brewing in the valley which the dunes lie. The clouds got darker and darker, there was more and more lightning and the wind picked up massively. We then noticed bit of the storm cloud swirling down and almost touching the floor, we joked about it being a tornado but decided to drive a little bit faster so that we had some option of cover in the visitor centre, you know, just in case! Despite the potential looming tornado we braved the wind and had a look at the sand dunes, they were very impressive but the weather was horrific and it was starting to pelt down with rain as well so we took a couple of photos and hot footed it back to the safety of Suzanne the van. We were quite glad to be driving away from all the storm clouds when we noticed a white haze in front of us, the closer we got the clearer it became that there was a sand storm sweeping across the road. It was a little scary but it just looked like we were driving through thick fog and it was over with quite quickly. Crossing our fingers for better weather ahead we pressed on through the mountains.

The views were yet again breathe taking, either side of us were enormous snow capped mountains and between were vast valleys and meadows covered in spring flowers. Every so often there was a tiny house and we wondered how people could live that remotely. The views didn't cease and we eventually pulled into Salida, a tiny town hidden in a valley between mountains. In every direction 360 degrees around all you could see were looming mountains and forests, it was an amazing place for sure!

We met Maddie's cousin, JD and his flatmate Russell, their house had a spare room and they were kind enough to let us stay in it which meant a real bed for 2 nights! We were very excited about this! We had a few beers and decided to head across the road to a Mexican restaurant which was delicious, it was the first real hearty meal we had had since the start of our trip so we were both really contented and went for an early night ready for the festival the next day. The next day was very chilled, JD and Russell both went out leaving us free reign of their entire house, American's seem to do this a lot! We asked if there were any keys we could use to lock up if we went out and were shocked to hear that they didn't even own keys to their own house! Apparently it's fine to leave their doors unlocked and even open as their isn't really any burglary around, JD said this is mainly because everyone knows that everyone has guns and you'd most probably be killed if you tried to rob someone. Oh America! Slightly put off by this we left the doors shut but unlocked and I headed out for a run. I knew we were in the mountains but i didn't know that being at almost 10,000ft would have quite that much of an effect on my ability to run! I couldn't catch my breathe and felt really light headed so it was a bit of a measly run but i felt good for it nonetheless.

We had a look around the town which was really cute and quaint, there were actually children selling lemonade outside their houses and the town centre was full of adorable gift shops, book stores and cafe's. Every person you passed said hello and we felt really safe and welcomed. We waited around the river for a raft race which was supposed to start at 4 but nothing happened. There were lots of people kayaking and seemingly practicing capsizing on the waves but no race occurred, we got a bit bored so headed back to JDs. As if JD and Russell hadn't done enough for us already they then invited us to a family BBQ. We met JDs sisters and nephew and Russell's brother who had the most adorable dog in the world, his name was Homer and he was a cross between a German Shepard and a .......... then we had one of the best BBQs of my life! They cooked giant cuts of beef, which we were told were similar to brisket, marinaded in an old family recipe. It was hands down the best steak i'd ever eaten, it was cut up very finely and melted in your mouth. I want the marinade recipe but they wouldn't tell :(.

After eating our weight in hot dogs and steak we headed down to the festival for a night of live music and fun. We were really looking forward to the festival as it had been bigged up by everyone we'd spoken to but when we got there it was pretty quiet. We figured that as it was only 2120 it was still early and would pick up. Oh how wrong we were; we bought one beer and they closed the beer garden gates behind us, it was 2130! The band stopped playing and everything was packed up, JD looked just as confused as us as every other year it had gone on until 2 in the morning. We were kicked out of the park and so made our way back to the house thoroughly underwhelmed. We think that previous years got so out of hand that complaints were made and so there is now a curfew of 10pm! Although this was really disappointing we still had a great time in Salida and it was interesting to see a typical small town in America and meet some great people. We headed out early full of excitement for the Rocky Mountain National Park!