New Mexico continues to not let us down. Yes, it’s hot—102 when we checked around lunch time, but we got to do not ONE special thing in New Mexico, but TWO! You could even say three!
We stayed in Alamagordo, NM. Our original plan was to visit White Sands National Park and sled the sand dunes. We absolutely did. Thank you to Gillian for spotting the sleds for sale (they have been sold out due to supply chain issues). We all took a turn. Audrey and Ryan raced. Ryan also kept pushing Audrey back down the sand dune so he could remain “King of the Sand” on the way back up each time.
A few fun facts about White Sands park:
It is in the Chihuahuan Desert.
The Chihuahuan Desert is both the coldest and the wettest desert in North America.
The white sands are made from gypsum, which is broken down into silica crystals, and then broken down further by wind to form sand particles.
You really can sled down the dunes.
Bonus (two)—it was a full moon tonight and the park is staying open until 11:00pm. We picked up a picnic dinner and returned to the park for pictures and scorpion hunting. The full Strawberry Moon was absolutely gorgeous and well worth the trip. Greg has some awesome pictures, but I don’t know that anyone can truly do this moon justice. One unanticipated distraction—the park was quite full of visitors watching the moon rise and sledding the sands at night. All that is well and good. I wasn’t expecting the howling as the moon rose. Human howling. Not actual werewolves. Is this a regular thing in New Mexico? Ryan managed to catch two scorpions. They do fluoresce, and the ones he found were small. He did not get stung. We would never have seen them without the blacklight as they are perfectly camouflaged. I did insist he let them go, despite him naming one Jeffrey, and his obvious disappointment. Sometimes Mom does get the final word.
Ok, full third bonus! I can’t remember if I mentioned it, but when we stopped through NM on the way out to Vegas, there were signs for the world’s largest pistachio. Not wanting to miss such an opportunity, we looked for it on the map and were disappointed to see that it was 3 hours away from where we were. At least I was disappointed. But not anymore! The World’s Largest Pistachio is here! And we never even knew it until we arrived!
Long, long, long drive day tomorrow as we head to state 48 on our list, Louisiana. Stay safe in the heat everyone!
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