This past weekend my wife and I traveled to the KS Flint Hills, specifically, Council Grove, KS. The main purpose of the trip was to attend the biennial Voices of the Wind People pageant. This outdoor historical drama of the Kaw Indians, the Santa Fe Trail and Council Grove was performed after dark in the Old Riverbed Amphitheater in Council Grove, KS. We spent 2 nights in the Cottage House B&B. The below photos are basically ‘close-up’ photos of many of the pageant participants both before the show began and during the show. No flash was permitted; the lighting came solely  from the ‘stage lights.

All photos were taken as color, however, I converted many of them to B&W. I would appreciate any comments you have as to your thoughts on the B&W conversion.

For more images in the Flint Hills, check back in a couple days and I will update my blog.

Day 9 & 10 of our vacation was a drive from Fairplay, CO to Antonito, CO with a stop at The Great Sand Dunes National Park. Having never been to this National Park, I didn’t know what to expect. From a distance the brown sand dunes did not look that impressive but as we got closer my opinion changed. The Great Sand Dunes National Park sprawl across part of southern Colorado's San Luis Valley but as you drive up to them they are dwarfed by the 13,000-foot peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It’s not until you get up close that you realize the dunes are enormous; some as tall as 750 feet. The Parks Services encourage visitors to walk on the dunes. There is no park road around the sight, only to a visitors’ center and a parking area somewhat close to the base of some of the dunes. The dunes are the tallest in North America, covering more than 30 square miles. Adults hike across them and marvel at their beauty; children run and slide down their steep slopes, enjoying a playground of fairy-tale proportions.

After leaving the park we headed to Antonito, CO which is one of the destination locations for the Cumbres & Toltec RR. We’ve been on the train once before and it was magnificent as it was the last run of the year and all the aspens were in their dress of fall color. We spent 2 nights in Antonito solely to facilitate the train ride as it takes all day to go from Antonito to Chama, NM with a lunch stop in between, then bused back to Antonito. This time I invested a few more dollars and secured seats in the parlor car (it was the last car on the 7 car train – not including the coal car). The additional expense was totally worth it; snacks and drink along with collectables as part of the price. Additionally, I could stand outside the rear of the car on a platform and take pictures as the train went around curves and pictures of the curved tracks we had just gone over.

The below slide show includes some of this images captured during this portion of our trip. This will be the last entry for the RMNP vacation as I’ve already posted (on Facebook) some of the images from our stay in Taos, NM and I don’t want to duplicate images.  Enjoy!

Music in the Slideshow

Crossing the Divide Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Day 8 & 9 of our vacation has us leaving the Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) and driving on back roads to Fairplay, CO. The previous post in my Blog shows images captured from that portion of the road trip. Once in Fairplay, we checked into our hotel, The Fairplay-Valiton Hotel. When we asked what sights were in the area that first time visitors might want to see we were directed to South Park City which is located in Fairplay.  South Park City, as described in Wikipedia, “is an open-air museum located at the west end of Front Street in the town of Fairplay in Park County, CO. The museum is a historic reconstruction of a mining town from the days of the Colorado Gold Rush and the later Colorado Silver Boom (late 1850s through the 1880s).

“The museum contains thirty-five authentic relocated buildings filled with over 60,000 artifacts that depict many of the economic and social aspects of life in a gold or silver mining town in Colorado in the late 19th century. Two of the buildings, the South Park Brewery and the Summer Saloon, are listed in the National Register of Historic Places."

“A log structure known as ‘Father Dyer’s Chapel’ was a hotel in Montgomery, Colorado but was dismantled, moved to Fairplay, and rebuilt as a church in 1868. It is named for John Lewis Dyer, the itinerant Methodist Clergman who preached in the area from 1861 to 1877 and is one of the sixteen founders of Colorado memorialized in the Colorado State Capitol in Denver."

In upcoming days I will post about our visit to the Great National Sand Dunes Park and then our stay in Antonito, CO for the purpose of riding the highest and longest narrow gauge, steam powered railroad in the United States; the Cumbres and Toltec Railroad which runs 64 miles from Antonito, CO to Chama, NM.

Enjoy the below slide show, and again, if you find this interesting please consider ‘Liking’ and ‘sharing’ on your choice of social media sights.  Thanks!