The visitor's center at White Sands is pretty neat. It was built in the 1930's using adobe and native materials. Inside are a handful of old looking exhibits but they have a neat introductory video. The gift shop had pins and shot glasses so I picked those up and then went outside to the picnic area to drink my red bull and plan the rest of my day. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to go north around the white sands area or go south to Las Cruces so I was checking the map and seeing where it was I was going. I tentatively decided on Cruces since Mom/Dad lived there. The road into the monument is paved most of the way and then turns into a sand road. They actually use snow plows to clear the road of any sand that gets blown onto them and I thought that was pretty funny.
The white sand itself comes from gypsum that dissolves in the mountains and flows down to the valley. The valley doesn't drain to the ocean so the water becomes trapped and as it evaporates the gypsum is left out on the dry lake beds and becomes wind-born. It's pretty crazy to see all of this white sand everywhere with occasional flashes of green marking the innovative plants that are able to survive there. My favorite was the cottonwood tree that can get smothered by a dune but keep living as long as some of its leaves are poking out of the sand. In the fall these leaves turn a brilliant red which looked pretty cool in the pictures I saw.
I went on a couple of quick guided hikes and ended up at a nature center deep within the park near the end of the road. Since its so remote the center uses solar panels to power everything inside which I thought was neat. There were some informative kiosks talking about how solar worked and how states like New Mexico could easily meet their power needs with large scale solar projects. Inside the center was this neat old lady that I talked to at length (longer than I wanted) about traveling and the various parks in the U.S. She's been to Alaska several times and was telling me about the inter-coastal ferry that can take you from Seattle to Alaska in 3 or 4 days. That sounded pretty cool because she said you could just take a bike and hop on and off at the various ferry stops and that sometimes a park ranger would come on board to talk about the things you can see. I might look into that later on in the summer if I can get some work done :)
After taking a few more pictures out on the dunes I high-tailed it back for the highway and headed to the White Sands Missile Range (formerly Proving Grounds) where my dad used to work because they have a museum there that I thought might be neat to see. Unfortunately I was late getting there and the museum itself was closed but they had a number of outdoor exhibits showcasing various missiles that the US had developed. It was a little emotional for me as I thought 'hmm, maybe dad was walking on this same road'. I think he also worked on a couple of the missiles that I saw as I have a cup commemorating the launch of one of them. After I left the base I also thought that dad had probably made the drive to Las Cruces from there several times so that was another bonding moment for me :)
I didn't stop in Las Cruces but just kept driving north. By this time it was pretty late so I decided I wasn't going to make Albuquerque and decided to stop in Socorro, which is about 60 miles south, instead. What a great find this was! Socorro was founded in 1598 by the Spanish and was burnt to the ground during the Pueblo Revolt and resettled in the 1800's. The hotel rooms were super cheap (29.99) and they had a pool that was more than 4 feet deep so I had fun playing around in that. After I got done with the pool I decided to head back into town to take some photos of this building I thought looked neat. I never found out what it was but it was right by the railroad tracks so I'm assuming it must have been a ticketing station or something like that.
On the way back I saw a historic sign so I pulled a u-turn and found the Garcia Opera House. I took this little side road out of the parking lot and noticed there was some sort of to-do going on so I stopped to check it out. Turns out the town has a spanish style plaza and in the center of the plaza is a park. They had some festival going on with a live band so I wandered over and sat in the park under these big old trees listening to live music. The band did cover songs in both English and Spanish and there were a lot of people there wandering around and dancing. Towards the back of the park was this big group of really cute single moms playing with their kids. In fact, most of the moms I saw appeared to be single which seemed kind of odd to me. Around 9:20 I figured I should probably find dinner and get to bed so I headed back for the hotel but before I got there I saw a neat church I wanted to take photos of. It's an adobe church in the missionary style but is not original to the founding of the town.
I took a couple of pictures and then went back to the hotel. Right next door was a restaurant that offered a 10% discount to hotel stayers and the clerk at the hotel desk had said they were excellent so I went in to check it out. The decor was pretty old but the fajitas I had were really good. It seemed like everyone in town ate there as I saw a few people from the plaza party come in to get take-out orders. After dinner I just went back to the room and sacked out.
White Sands Pics
Socorro Pics
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