Valentines

 2/14- Alamogordo NM

   We stopped and visited White Sands National Park this morning. We wanted to get there early in the day before the forecasted wind picked up. We drove in through these brilliant white dunes. The pavement eventually ended and we continued on this packed surface. We hiked out onto the dunes. It was partly cloudy and the clouds matched the dunes and with no plants or anything it was a complete white out. We hiked up and down some gigantic dunes. It was a trail in only a marginal sense as all we had to follow were stakes driven into the sand every so often. The wind started picking up and it was easy to see how you could get lost out there. There were signs saying it was illegal to remove any sand. I hope they didn’t check my shoes as I dumped out  a fair bit back at the campsite. 

    The dunes are not actually made of sand but gypsum like Sheetrock. So they are actually kind of soft and cool. They will even rent you sleds to use on the dunes. We saw people trying it and most were only marginally successful. Interestingly water lies not too deep under the surface and that helps stabilize some of the sections. The dunes move quite a bit and cover the plants. The yucca will grow taller to stay above the sand but when the sand moves on it can’t support the weight of the stem and collapses. 

    We decided as it was Presidents Day weekend would would just sit for the weekend. We pulled into a nice KOA right in the middle of the town of Alamogordo. They had some live music tonight as we went and listened to a group of cowboys singing country songs. This is country music country so when in Rome ….

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