Don't wait till the water runs dry

Today was the big White Sands day, an event I have been waiting for since, yes I'll admit it, I saw the Boyz II Men "Water Runs Dry" video as a kid. haha  I've held that in for too long so I'm out with it and that is what sparked my interest after wondering where they filmed that video.  If you think less of me I'm sorry.  I still love Boyz II Men btw. :)

But first we had breakfast at our Inn after surviving the haunted night.  The lovely owner, Linda, came right over to us at breakfast and dubbed us her "mystery girls" since we arrived so late. I didn't think 7:30 was too late for a Sunday night but at an Inn with 7 rooms maybe it is.  Regardless, Linda was an absolutely lovely hostess.  She was very curious to know where we came from, why we were here, what our interests were.  It's funny because it was really her who was far more interesting.  She had family who you could trace back to the founding of Long Island and a mother who was born in Louisville.  Linda was dressed very nice and commented on how she just can't bring herself to wear jeans bec. it's how she was raised. She likes to dress nice and look nice and that's just how it is.  She truly entertained us over breakfast with stories of the Inn, the art work, her adopted children for a local tribe, some celebes who had recently stayed at the Inn ( whom she said we were far prettier than the actresses since they were anorexic. haha)  And best of all she gave us some round saucer sleds to take to White Sands for sledding down the dunes.  AFter a delightful conversation with her we headed off on the 1 hour drive to the park.

www.nps.gov/whsa

On the drive out from Las Cruces there is nothing but desert, the Chihuahua desert to be specific (one of 4 deserts in the US I believe).  Part of the drive takes you through the White Sands Missile range, which can actually shut down the park on days when they're testing out the missiles.  freaky, yes.  But fortunately for us Monday was not one of those days.  It's a $3 entrance fee to the park which will last you 6 days. A steal if you ask me.  We got to the park around 10/10:30 in the morning and stayed till 6:30 and used up every single second of it.  Our weather was perfect as I can't imagine going there in the unbearable summer months.  65 was perfect.  When you pull up you still can't imagine this massive area of white sand, but then suddenly about a mile out from the entrance to the park, there it is.  Much like my blogs from last year of Peru and Chile, it's hard to put into words how beautiful the park was.  It's simply an ocean of white sand as far as the eye can see and surrounded by the 2 mountain ranges on either side. It's spectacular.  There are various hikes you can do there. We did the 1 mile hike first which takes you through the dunes with some vegetation on them and then later in the day we did about half of the 4.6 mile hike.  We didn't leave enough time to do all of it but I think we all agreed that what we did see exceeded our expectations.  Basically White Sands is like one big playground.  THere were tons of families with kids letting them run wild in the sand or sled down the dunes.  And we were no exception like that.  We jumped, we ran down the dunes, I even made a sand angel; it was exhilirating! The sledding in particular was a blast, once we got the hang of it. At first I was convinced kids had the advantage bec. of their size.  we kept crawling down the hill in the sled while these little brats flew by us. ;)  But once the kind woman at the visitor center tipped us off to the tricks: waxing the bottom and leaning back with your legs out, it was a whole other ball game.  In the end my top speed was going down on my stomach.  I flew!!!  Oh so much fun.  Around 4:45 we headed over for the Sunset Stroll.  A park ranger takes you on a short walk and explains the history of the park, the animals, vegetation and then leaves you at the end to watch the sun set over the desert.  And it was gorgeous.  The thing about sunsets is they change every few minutes. One second the sand is white, then 2 minutes later it's gold, and then blue and then purple. The colors of the sand and sky were gorgeous.  I took entirely too many photos but I just couldn't be stopped.  Every time I thought I was done I would turn around and the sky would look completely different.  

Now I really can't do this park justice in the blog, but seriously folks, you HAVE to check it out.  It might seem a little out of the way but it's really not; especially if you just make it into a New Mexico road trip.  The dunes are just so beautiful and pristine.  I definitely had one of those moments where you think how lucky am I to live in a country with this much beauty in it? pretty damn lucky