California National Parks ~2026 Superbloom

Monday, April 20  I tried to find some interesting places to stay on way home through the flat Midwest!  Quintessential farmlands! We had to grab one last Mexican lunch in Cheyenne Wells, Colorado, before crossing in to Kansas! LOL We were defiantly out of the "Authentic " range!! It was "OK" ... Found a great town Park in Ellis Kansas.  A quaint town know for its part in the Kansas Pacific railroad and fun fact is it was the childhood town of Walter P. Chrysler  What a great spot right on a river with full hookups for  25.00!!! a GREAT "out west" stopover!! Tuesday April 21 I found a FREE MCD campground Perfect on a river....except it had rained so the river was too brown to fish! We were the only ones there! Very peaceful, just a little highway noise , better than Cracker Barrel. lol Food better than Cracker Barrel too! shrimp and scallops with power greens garlic in a lemon wine sauce quite yummy, if I don't say so myself!! Wednesday ...

 Wow This is our 61st of 63 National parks in the contiguous US National park. The 2 we missed are both islands that we couldn't get on the ferry. lol .....but they are islands, so do they count?? It is still a big bucket list milestone for us. But we will go to the 2 islands some day. First lets start with breakfast. Peach pie from Capital Reef NP, with sharp Mexican cheese and plain Greek yogurt!...oh, I may have added a dollop of whipped cream. We still have a few frozen in our freezer for home. Leaving Gunnison the left over snow left these really cool bands on the mountain ridges. It looks like someone painted them The drive to Great sand dunes took us over the continental divide! We went up to around 8000 ft and then the earth turned in to a few hundred miles of flat grazing lands.  We went up MANY switchbacks to the Continental divide over 11000 ft!! We stopped at a tiny diner and I had a yak burger, raised locally, homemade bun, and local potatoes! it was a fun experie...