October 3, 2020
The adventure begins! 5:00 a.m. and we're off. A beautiful day for driving, but
a long 5 1/2 hour drive to our first stop...White Sands National Park. The
wave-like dunes are made up of gypsum sand and cover 275 square miles
of desert, creating the world's largest gypsum dune field.
We arrive at the park after an hour-long drive thru the White Sands Missile Range.
With flat land as far as the eye can see in any direction, one can
understand why the government chose this area to test missiles.
The landscape was teasing us for about 5 miles with the sides of road dotted with
white, snow-like sand, so it was exciting to finally get to the park. This was our second
try; the first attempt being thwarted by a government shut down a couple years ago,
and this one almost being thwarted by Covid.
We put on our masks and headed down the road. I guess my expectations were
high from pictures on the internet, so I found it slightly disappointing. Since the park
preserves most of the dunes, the actual drive over the loop road in the park is short,
only 16 miles round trip. The drive is very small in comparison to the vastness of
the dunes. I suppose you see one dune, you've seen them all, except there were
no "pristine" dunes to see. They were all covered with hundreds of footprints,
sled marks everywhere, and dog poop left behind by owners who felt they didn't have
to clean up after their pets. If you wanted to hike about a mile into the dunes,
I suppose you'd find the perfect dunes, but we didn't set aside time for that. We
did manage to capture a couple of shots with the zoom lens, so all was not lost.
The drive through the park was amazing. There are many pull-off areas where you can
get out and walk in the sand. Even though it was a hot day, the white sand was very
cool on your bare feet and the further down you burrowed your feet, the cooler it
got. There was a good breeze that day, blowing the sand across the road and creating
new dunes before your eyes, reminiscent of the "white-out" blizzards in the northeast.
This was Romin's first trip with us and he exceeded all expectations!
In general, it was worth the trip to see and we would highly recommend it. Don't
forget your sunglasses and a hat! Next stop.....Roswell!
For more info click on this link to the White Sands NP website
Peace
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