Colorado Trip 2022
At the beginning of the summer Soli and I were trying to figure out where we wanted to vacation this year. We had a hard time nailing something down that seemed interesting and fun but also not crazy expensive. It seemed like flights was the Achilles heel of every potential destination we found. Affordable Airbnb. ✔️ Cool location? ✔️ Flights? Gonna have to sell a kidney to afford that…haha
Soli started looking through some of Airbnb’s recommended pages and we stumbled onto Crestone, Colorado. Super remote, really beautiful location, some fun things to do nearby. Winner winner. We knew going into this that it would be quite a bit of travel to get there. Tickets were cheap to Denver but Crestone is a good 4.5 hours southwest of Denver. We flew out of Charlotte so our journey began in the airport…
After landing in Denver we picked up our rental car and hit the road. Immediately running into bumper to bumper traffic…oh and it was raining. What a kick off to the trip. But once we got out of the city and the traffic, the landscape really opened up. I started driving first, so after a while of me handing my camera to Soli to snag photos of the drive we found a good spot to pull over and switch places. haha
The drive to our Airbnb was absolutely beautiful though. Open plains, grand mountains, and big skies.
We got in after dark so we didn’t get the chance to see much of the landscape. In the morning we woke up to a beautiful mountain range right in front of us, an open plain in the opposite direction, and the kind of silence that only comes from a town with a population of 44 people.
The town of Crestone was small with one local grocery store, a cafe, a local art gallery, and a small shop selling knick knacks. There was one gas station and a stand-alone store for beer and wine. There seemed to be a lot of travelers in the town. Not tourists, but people just passing through. We spent some time walking through the one square block in the town, checked out the stores, and found some neat shops.
Two things we had on our “To Do” list for the area were checking out the Great Sand Dunes National Park and some local hot springs. We visited the sand dunes first and dang was it a marvel. Seeing 800 foot sand dunes backdropped by 14,000 foot mountains was quite the sight. We didn’t have time to make it to the top since it was supposed to rain that day but it probably would have taken an hour or more to hike it.
The hot springs were super relaxing. Having a giant mountain range right across from you while you’re soaking in a natural hot spring is the life.
We checked out a few other local places, like a restaurant called Grammy’s Kitchen, a coffee shop, and even found a Baptist church to attend on Sunday. I also took a portrait of our server, who we had a great time chatting with, before leaving Grammy’s Kitchen. In case you’re wondering, she wasn’t “Grammy.” haha
The rest of our time in Crestone was spent reading (a lot) and of course Soli driving me around to take photos of everything. One night I even rigged a telescope tripod to get some long exposure shots of the stars. The community we were in was what’s called a Dark Skies Community so it had almost no light pollution. It was magical.
When our time in Crestone came to a close and it was time to drive back to Denver we decided to break it up and hit a few stops along the way. Our first stop was at the Royal Gorge Bride which is the highest suspension bridge in the country! We rode a cable car across the gorge first and then walked back over the bridge.
After that we went on to Garden of the Gods, which is so beautiful. It was a little odd just how close it was to Colorado Springs. The park itself is large and feels remote but right up to the entrance you’re just going through suburban neighborhoods, which felt so strange. haha
Both locations were incredibly beautiful though. Would highly recommend.
Before flying back to Charlotte we stayed the night outside of Denver in a super suburban area. It felt really strange to be in a location like that after staying in the middle of nowhere for a week. It was such a stark contrast but we were happy to be heading home.
The trip was incredible but we missed our little pup and our own bed. The flight back went off without a hitch but after so much travel we were done. If you ever get the chance to make it out to Crestone, Colorado it’s definitely worth the trip!
