White Sands National Monument


The winds began to howl this morning at about 4:30. Our poor tent trailer was moving in ways that we were not particularly thrilled by.  So, we were up by 5:30 and taking down the tent.  No coffee…oh!  oh!  Down the road we went for about 30 minutes and found a McDonalds where we sat for a while savoring our ‘El Grande’ coffee.  Disaster diverted!

We drove West today through a whole lot more of New Mexico’s desert.  It was a whole lot more of their oil fields and not much else.  We then began to climb peaking at 8700 feet as we traveled through the Sacramento Mountain Range.  To our surprise we came upon a ski hill with snow making equipment and everything.  We sure do not associate New Mexico with snow but obviously they get some.  The highway then plunged down out of the mountains for the next 16 miles depositing us in the town of Alamogordo.  Where the heck is Alamogordo you might ask…it is beside White Sands Missile Range, Fort Bliss Military Reserve, and Holloman Air Force Base.  One hundred miles north is ‘Trinity Site’, the site of the first test of the Atomic Bomb.  This area bleeds military!  However, that is not the reason for us being here.  We came to visit White Sands National Monument.

White Sands National Monument does not have a monument.  We are unsure of the reason for the name.  It is a 275 square mile park made up of sand dunes.  These are not your average sand dunes. They are made up of gypsum sand, the same material that drywall is made of.  They are white, white, white!  We were able to drive 8 miles out into them and hike up into them.  It was 34 degrees today, but this sand is actually cool on the feet…strange to say the least.  Again, like yesterday and the day before, the most common word out of our mouths was “wow”!  Hopefully some of the pictures will do today justice.

We are staying in the Alamogordo KOA.  We are only about 70 miles from the Mexican border.  To my knowledge we are not going there.

Distance Traveled = 287 km.  Wildlife Sightings = Rabbit, Eurasian-collared Dove, Curve-billed Thrasher, Bullocks Oriole, Turkey Vulture, Western Kingbird, White Sands Lizards…Bleached Earless Lizard, Little WhiteTailed Whiptail.


Road down through the mountains to Alamogordo


White Sand Dunes


'Plowed' road we drove


White sand as far as the mountains....


Playa Trail - unusual to have water here in June - usually not until July or August


Picnic Shelters out in the dunes - no wonder they tested the Mars Rover in this area


Soap tree Yucca


Older dunes where plants are surviving

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