White Sands National Park

 Good morning, my friends. Our stay here in New Mexico has been short. We'll be on our way to Texas this morning. But I know you've been waiting on tenterhooks to find out which national park we visited yesterday, and...TaDa!

It was an easy 46-mile drive along both interstate and US highways. Like Arizona, they enjoy their freeway art in New Mexico too.

Here's a little more.

Even their big tanks have been painted with murals. I'm assuming these hold water, but I don't know for sure.

And just one more before we turned off and headed north.

As one descends a hill into a vast valley, one passes through the White Sands Missile Range. And I'll offer this up as a hint: Before you visit White Sands National Park, check the website. The park closes when missile testing is going on. One assumes this highway also closes.

You can see the Army base off to the right.

It isn't surprising the Army chose this site for missile testing. There is nothing around for miles and miles...except the park, of course.

Off in the distance, we could see San Agustin Peak (elevation 7,030). Below, we could see the white sands.

Just prior to reaching the turn off for the visitor center, one must pass through a border patrol checkpoint.

If you have Rover or Fifi along, please keep them in check.

There was a little bit of a back-up here, but absolutely no one checking anything. There was also a stop sign associated with that green light. 

It was just another mile or two, but when we reached the turn off for the park...holy moly! There was a terrible accident here, apparently just shortly before we arrived. Traffic was backed up just a little bit. When we left the park, it was backed up literally for miles.

Somebody was having a very bad day. In order to get around all the emergency vehicles, we had to drive up the road just a little ways, make a U-turn, and then come back. It was only a slight inconvenience for us, but those people in the accident...so sorry.

We stopped off at the visitor center, and I picked up my fourth refrigerator magnet of the trip.

I might have already had one of these, except that I wasn't collecting refrigerator magnets when we made our last visit.

We picked up a map, and then set out on the 8-mile drive to see the park.

It starts out with some dunes and a lot of grass and yucca.

Eventually reaching mostly sand...even across the road. It is the nature of dunes to move with the wind, and so the road must be constantly swept to avoid being covered over. We saw this same sort of thing in our travels in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. And let me just say, kitties would love it here.

There were a few hiking trails. Neither of us was game for hiking on soft sand, but we took this boardwalk trail to the end.

Along the way, we read some interesting sign information. I would have loved to see one of these lizards. Signs were printed in both English and Spanish. I've cropped them to make them more readable. If you were hoping for the Spanish version...so sorry.

Why is it white, you ask? The Google tells us that this isn't really sand in the traditional sense. It is made up of gypsum. Gypsum is actually a clear substance; the dunes appear white like snow because the gypsum grains are constantly banging into each other. The scratches then reflect the sun's rays making them appear white. Also, unlike silica sand, gypsum doesn't absorb heat from the sun. The Google also gives us 5 Cool Facts about White Sands National Park. And we're a capitalist society here. We look for how we can make money on something.

These next series of signs explain how all of this was formed.

Looking off in the distance, we could still see the snow-capped peak of San Agustin. The white sand was blinding.

Walking back, I snapped a few pictures here and there.

We'd seen this sign on our way out, but it was crowded with kids and other people. I stopped off to get a photo on the way back. We saw only human footprints, but I enjoyed seeing all of the possibilities.

People were sliding down the dunes. They had "sleds" for sale in the visitor center. The walk up the hill appeared very taxing when contrasted with the short slide down.

Military jets flew over intermittently. You can see their jet trails in the image below. Look across the middle, and you'll see their wispy lines.

The drive looped around. It was covered with even more sand this far away from the visitor center.

And that visit took just a couple of hours. We headed back to Las Cruces the way we came. We could get a good look at the north side of the Organ Mountains.

It was early enough in the day, we stopped off at a quilt shop for a visit. I'll tell you about the quilt shop in a separate post.

For dinner last night, I tried a new recipe. This is Homemade Hamburger Helper. I've linked to the recipe there, but it's another from the NYTimes. If you can't open it, email me, and I'll be happy to send it to you. This was really good. I was going to serve it with fried cabbage, but the asparagus looked nice, and 'tis the season.

There's a story associated with "Hamburger Helper." Probably everyone has some version of this story. When Mike and I were first married, we lived in Phoenix while he went to engineering school. He had a part-time job as well, but mostly we lived off my salary as a legal secretary. And we ate a LOT of hamburger helper and tamale pie. We could stretch it out for three meals and keep our food budget in check. By the third meal it was tasting pretty tired. When Mike graduated, he said he never wanted to eat Hamburger Helper again. And we didn't. Even during lean years when I was staying home with babies, we avoided the dreaded HH.

Fast forward to last week, and this recipe came down from the NYTimes. It would give me an opportunity to use up half a box of elbow macaroni, and it could all be made in one pan...a good camping recipe. So, Mike reluctantly consented to giving it a try, and he liked it. Yes, Mikey likes it!! He even had seconds. 

I made just a few changes to the recipe. For one thing, I didn't have any bay leaves along, and so I used a quarter teaspoon of dried thyme. Frankly, I don't think a bay leaf is the right choice. There's a lot of stirring involved, and I'm afraid that bay leaf would just get all broken up. Also, the recipe calls for "American cheese," which isn't really cheese at all. I substituted grated Swiss cheese...about one-half cup. Finally, I didn't have anything called "hot sauce" with me. I substituted jalapeno Tabasco. It was very good with those substitutions, and I'd make it that way again. On the other hand, I have a bottle of Frank's hot sauce at home, and so I might try it with that next time.

It's been a few days since I did any slow-stitching, beyond repairing the hole in my jeans. There has been some progress, however. I'll probably have some time to work on it before we leave this morning.

And if you've enjoyed this post, you can thank Smitty's tail. He's sitting in his window hammock as I write this. It's almost directly over my head. Occasionally, he gives my face an encouraging caress with his tail.

So we're off to Fort Davis, Texas today. We'll spend three days there, and we have general admission tickets to visit MacDonald Observatory. We've visited this area before, and we attended one of the star parties at MacDonald Observatory. It was our first time learning about iridium flares. They are momentary flashes of light when an orbiting satellite reflects light from the sun. They flash for just an instant, and then they're gone. We saw a very bright one at the star party. Very cool. 

We stayed at Fort Davis State Park on our last visit, nearly 20 years ago. As we were approaching the park, I noticed an RV ahead of us. I jokingly said to Mike, "Hurry up and get ahead of those people. They're going to get our spot." And I had no idea if there would be any spots available at this first-come-first-served park, but we did get ahead of those folks. I was reserving the last available spot as they walked in the door behind me. Sorry folks. You snooze, you lose. And all of that to say the state park is closed for upgrades right now. We're staying at a private RV park. It's a historic area, and we're looking forward to doing a little more exploring there.

And that's all I have for you today. I'll have to owe you a quilt shop post. Possibly I'll get it done later on this afternoon after we get set up in Fort Davis. Until then, fasten your seatbelts. We have about 250 miles to go today.