We wake up to clear skies, the temperature is still a bit fresh in the morning, but by the time we get to the Sand Dunes it’s about 70 Fahrenheit (20 Celsius), which makes it a lot easier to stroll around the dunes than back in summer when we were melting in the heat.

All in all we walk around the brilliantly white sand for about 3.5 hours. The first walk we start at a marked trailhead and from there walk out into the dunes. We see lots of animal tracks: There are small foxes, pocket mice and kangaroo rats, besides lizards, beetles and birds that live here in the dunes. We don’t see any of the animals though but just by looking at all the tracks we can imagine how busy it must be out here at night, when they are all out.

The second walk we take turns out to be a bit longer than expected – we head out to some trees we can see from far, but on the way back we walk too far to the right and eventually have to walk quite a long way back along the road to find our car again.

The National Monument is 275 square miles (712 square kilometer), so even after walking around for so long we only have seen a tiny little fraction of it. Only about 3 feet below the dunes is a hugh water reservoir which explains why trees can survive out here.

Marco takes the most beautiful and brilliant pictures with his new camera. Just have a look and enjoy yourself.