28/29MAR10 - Alamogordo, NM (holloman afb)

Sunday morning, 28MAR, we departed Albuquerque enroute El Paso, TX. The reason we are going to El Paso, rather than northwest to the Pacific Northwest, is because Dan has a job there between 05-09APR. Rather than head due south on I-25, we decided to do a little sightseeing enroute. The first stop would be Alamogordo, NM, to checkout the White Sands National Monument. Enroute we had to endure a DUI checkpoint in the middle of nowhere, on Sunday morning no less! We wonder if New Mexicans are hitting the communal wine a little hard?

We decided to try and stay at the RV Family Camp at Holloman Air Force Base. We were lucky and got the last site with hook-ups. Unfortunately, we have noticed a disturbing trend in the last year at military base RV parks. Although the parks are supposedly for short term recreational use, many are now full of base personnel who are using the sites for their long term housing. Of the 20 sites at Holloman, at least half are people that work on the base. After setting up camp Corrie took off to check out the Exchange & the Commissary; while Dan took off to photograph the Air Force planes on static display that is pretty standard on most USA Air Force Bases. This static display had a stealth strike aircraft (F-117, aka Nighthawk) on display, something Dan hadn’t seen before.

http://www.holloman.af.mil/

Monday morning we headed to the White Sands National Monument. This is the largest gypsum sand dune field in the world (key word being gypsum). We won’t bore you with the geology, but the Tularosa Basin is perfect for the creation of gypsum sand (as opposed to silicon sand or quartz sand) & its “capture” into sand dunes. It is the whitest white you have ever seen, & unlike other sands does not get hot in the blazing sun (allowing you to go barefoot at anytime). NOTE: the National Monument is next door to the White Sands Missile Range, which results in the Monument & local roads (including US 70) being shutdown a couple times a week presumably because a test missile is flying overhead.

In past BLOG entries about National Parks/Monuments we have highly recommended taking the free Ranger led tours, but it turned out that the only Ranger led tour was later that evening. So we hiked a nature trail through the dunes on a self-guided tour. On the trail every so often were pictures & information signs told from the view of a Kit Fox. Along with being very informative, they were often humorous. For example in describing Fast Food, the Kit Fox explained how he liked rabbits or hares for dinner, but they were fast & he rarely caught them. After this very enjoyable & informative hike, we drove through the rest of the dunes before heading into town.

We did a very quick tour of Alamogordo & found most of the town vacant. As usual Dan had some eccentric sites he wanted to photograph. And we also visited a couple of the many roadside stores selling pistachio items & tourist trinkets. Turns out that local farmers started planting pistachios in the early 70s, & now you can even get pistachio wine.

A little before sunset we returned to the White Sands National Monument to take a free Ranger led desert walk timed to allow you view sunset from the dunes. As we have talked about before, it well worth your time to take part in these freebies if you can coordinate your visit. Not only was it informative, enjoyable, with a beautiful sunset, but we were also treated to a spectacular full moon rise right as the sun set.

http://www.nps.gov/whsa/index.htm

Trivia – What is the difference between a National Monument & a National Park? What is sand? What is the only mammal in White Sands that never drinks water (even after large rains)?