White Sands Inn And Suites Alamogordo

... Junior Ranger packet.

We ate a Golden Corral. At 7pm, we went on a sunset stroll with Ranger Mike. He had me answer some of the questions, because he knew that I would get the answers right. We saw footprints from animals. Some I could identify, but some I couldn't.

We drove home with the top down and it started to rain. Mamaw didn't want to put the top up!

We drove down to the White Sands National Park, which is miles of pure white sand dunes. It is really hot and blinding white, and so its quite hard to take photos and not squint when smiling!

We have now driven up to Albuquerque and will explore tomorrow.

PS we are still picking good motels, one night we were kept ...

Surprise Mogollon Petroglyphs... I stumbled upon these in an area called Three Rivers in Eastern New Mexico. The red petroglyphs were in Gila National Park near the cliff dwellings.

More on my trip website

... checkpoint, they probably didn't want anyone taking pictures. I didn't even ask. The museum is quite good. It explains all of the goings on through the years here testing all kinds of missiles, planes, and even a flying saucer! There is actually a flying saucer looking thing on display out in the missile garden. I next went to the New Mexico Space Museum back here in Alamogordo. I hit this place at just the right time. There was a gentleman there that volunteers his time on ...

... and to stand in front of one of the satellites, and then to realize there are dozens of them.

I almost wish that they had more information or a guided tour or something there. But there is just a small inside informational area, and then a walking tour out to one of the satellites. Needless to say this was a great stop off on the way to El Paso.

I've learned that there aren't that many places that you can go in New Mexico that are below 5,000 ft. Cloudcroft is a pretty cool little place nestled on top of a mountain in south New Mexico (when I say little I mean it). It's about 2 or 3 blocks of quaint stuffed between a mountain top and the sky. In it's day it was a pretty cool ski resort I was told, but because of the lack of snow in recent years it's resigned itself to a quiet peaceful town ...

... bubbly, enthusiastic tree-hugger) explained how the vast expanse of dunes were formed - long story involving dissolved limestone from the surrounding mountains and various stages of crystalisation and erosion - and how life has adapted to the sandy landscape. We were taken to see different sorts of plants and shown photos of some of the wildlife - foxes and lizards and such like. And once she had ...

Back on the road again. This time we are definitely heading east. We decided to travel via Globe to check out the desert blooms for which this area is known - only to find that hwy 60 would be a challenge. We discovered that Apache Junction was the site for a major Golf Tournament today and a little further on we discovered that the Renaissance Festival was into its final weekend, resulting in traffic congestion that delayed us about 45 ...

Heading south-west from roswell you get to alamogordo. just out of town, there is a turnoff from HW70, White Sands Nat Monument. That means pay. 3 $. you see a lot of white sand dunes. its actually interesting. its plain white....and it is not ...

Okay, we are sadistic. It is still over 100 degrees and we decide to go see the White Sands National Monument. Now this isn't the size of the desert in Namibia, but it is pretty nice because it is all white soft sand. The sunsets can be pretty amazing. However, the day we were there a storm was a brewing so the sunset was not that spectacular. The lightening show we saw for ...