On our next leg we had planned to stay at the Alamogordo KOA in Alamogordo, New Mexico. We were making very good time that day, and after driving through Alamogordo (actually a fairly nice looking medium-sized town) we decided to head on to the White Sands National Monument. There is a stretch of mountains that you must go over if you are coming from the east (as we were) and in the distance we could see what looked like clouds down below in the distance. As we approached the White Sands, we realized that this area was actually the White Sands themselves.
The trip into White Sands was very memorable. The Visitor Centre showed a little video (as many of them do) and we all watched that and poked around for a few minutes. We did buy a Southwest US National Parks book at this site where we started getting our 'stamps'. This is an ink stamp (typically with the date) that indicates that you visited a particular location. We did not have the book when we visited Carlsbad Caverns a couple of days earlier, so we are missing that stamp, however, we are now getting our stamps.
At any rate, back to White Sands. At first the kids thought 'oh no, another place where the parents will poke around and go slowly'. Once we were touring around inside, however, the tune changed. This place is WAY COOL! There are just massive, continuous white sand dunes that they let you run about on (for the most part). The sands move quite a bit (some as much as 30 feet a year), so I guess they do not worry about a few footprints. We drove along an eight mile road with occasional stops to check out the scenery and run around on the dunes:
Here is a slightly touched up picture of the kids jumping off a sand dune 'cliff':
Pam and David did get a bit of time alone when they went on the boardwalk (children sat in the car .. 'not interested'). The amount of bio-diversity in an area that one intuitively might think is fairly barren is unbelievable. As it turns out, this is a trend throughout the apparently barren desert that we view in the American Southwest.
After White Sands it is getting fairly late (about 6 PM), and the sun is about to set over the mountain we are heading in towards. We drive over this mountain range (past the White Sands Missile station), and head for Las Cruces, New Mexico for the night. After talking to a park ranger at a nearby state park, and upon his recommendation, we stay at the BestView RV Park. This park has a spectacular night-time view of the lights above Las Cruces on western side of the city (i.e. 'past' Las Cruces for us). We got in fairly late, and set up our trailer in the dark and had a very late dinner (around 20:30). We met a very nice couple and spent about an hour in their 'bus' (it was a forty-footer!). This is where we learned about the Interlochen arts academy in northwestern Michigan (not far from where they live). We got brochures for Reba from them and she is quite interested in this place. Unfortunately, it is very pricey (and in US $). Here's the view from the edge of the park overlooking Las Cruces:
In the morning, we got up, and got going quite efficiently on toward our next destination, the City of Rocks.