October 2008 - New Mexico

As I said in the last post, we had run out of USA in our search for warm weather. We decided to stay a few days in Las Cruces, NM to see what the weather was going to do and also to sightsee at White Sands near Alamagordo, NM. Las Cruces was warm and sunny and we were relishing the warm weather. We drove to White Sands and visited a pistachio orchard just north of Alamagordo. Boy were those nuts good! And we had the best pistachio homemade ice cream we have ever had! On Monday we made it down to Las Cruces, NM where we camped for the last two nights. We took a day trip over to White Sands National Monument and Alamagordo, NM. Didn't see any stealth fighters on this trip, though. This is where they are based and fly their missions from. We had gone through that area back in 2003 but had not taken the time to stop and see it. In Alamagordo we went to a pistachio grove and had the most delicious pistachio ice cream! Then went to White Sands and had fun playing on the dunes and watching children sledding on the dunes with saucer sleds. White Sands is the only gypsum and field in the US and is the largest in the world. Gypsum sand does not get warm like beach sand so even though the sun was intense and it was near 80 degrees, the sand was cool to our feet. Homer had such fun. He thought it was snow and tried to roll and eat it for water content - found out it wasn't what he thought! He had so much fun running and digging in it. The Ranger was laughing at him and said " No problem! What he digs up the wind will move and cover over 15 minutes after he leaves." The dunes move about 30 feet a year and it is a sort of self perpetuating situation. Since there is no drainage from the Tularosa basin, the minerals are dissolved by the rain water in the mountains and come down to the bottom of the basin where the water evaporates and leaves the crystals behind. The wind blows them and they scratch each other to form the white particles of sand as they tumble. About 1/4 of the sand field is in the national monument. The rest is part of the White Sands Missile Range - site of the first atomic bomb test, the Trinity Site, and home to most of the US missile testing.