Finally White Sands

Believe it or not, after all my time in New Mexico, I just now finally got around to seeing White Sands. I didn't really know what to expect (other than lots of white sand). I thought it was really fascinating. Out of the normal desert you just hit this abrupt wall of perfectly white sand. At first there's some plants scattered in it, but eventually, it's just sand. Sand as far as you can see. And the lighting gets very weird. The sky seems to have a strange purplish tinge to it. What surprised me even more was the photo in the visitor center showing the size of the park relative to the size of the sand sea; it was less than a quarter of it. That is a lot of sand.



Afterwards, I swung through Alamogordo and had lunch before going up to Cloudcroft for a bit. Cloudcroft isn't all that exciting, but it's interesting that a climate like it has exists in the middle of the desert.

As usual, you can find the pics here.

PS, I think I am probably now technically a criminal because my shoes were full of white sand (which I think constitutes removing pieces of a national monument), and keep finding traces of it whenever I wear those shoes (which I think constitutes bringing soil into europe without an agriculture inspection). It's been nice knowing everyone.