We're in Alamosa, Co today and tomorrow... leaving on Thursday to head to Durango.  Alamosa is not a very exciting town, but there are a few things we wanted to do here before we go. 

First place we went this morning was the Colorado Gator Farm.  It started out many years ago as a tilapia farm, and an alligator was brought in to eat dead fish and waste.  I guess it grew from there because they still raise tilapia, but the alligators are the stars of this place now.  They also have turtles, ostriches, snakes and emus.  It looks like an old place, and a little run down but it was very cool to walk through and feed the alligators and look at everything they have. 

If you look real close you can see the alligator's teeth marks!  They stick the paper in his mouth and let him bite it!

Me and my new friend Gucci.  I was brave..... Larry was not! lmao

They had some HUGE snakes!

Larry feeding the gators.  Some were so lazy you had to drop or throw the food right in front of them before they would eat.

Giving me the evil eye, lmao

These baby ducks kept trying to get through the fence to their mama.... but about the time they would find the way through the emus would walk over by them and they'd all run away.  Mama stood outside the fence raising a fuss!

After the excitement of the gators, we thought we would drive by the Great Sand Dunes National Park... they looked like the were just right down the road.  But, around here the ground is sooo flat you can see forever.  So what looks like it's right over there is really 15 miles down the road!  We finally made it there, and it was well worth the drive!  There are these huge sand dunes right up against the mountains.  There's a small creek runs by there, but this time of the year it's nearly dried up... just a small bit of water.  Kids were making sand castles and little dams just like at the beach.

 We could see people walking up the dunes, some were even at the very top! I think I read it's a 3 mile round trip walk.  And the sand there isn't the easy to walk on sand like on the beach in Florida.... your feet sink down in there and you really have to trudge through it.  They make special sand boards and sleds for people to use.  I guess you can sled down just like it's a  hill of snow!

We also saw some wildlife while driving through the park....

She was laying under this tree right beside the road.  When we came back on our way out of the park, she was still there but had turned around.  Guess she didn't like getting her picture taken!

Mountain lion or a cougar??  The signs keep warning us we're in big cat and bear country!

Not sure what we'll be doing tomorrow.  There's a ranch here that raises bison and they will take you on a tour, but they don't start til July so that was a little disappointing.  There's a water fall that sounds pretty cool, but it's a 1/2 mile walk... if it's a flat, shaded walk we might go for that.  There are also a couple wildlife refuges we'd like to drive through.  It may end up being another busy day :)