May 14 - White Sands National Park

Friday morning I got up early for a quail-watching walk and found a couple new wildflowers in the scrub behind the campground.

Then we packed a lunch and headed to White Sands National Park!

It’s the largest gypsum dune field on Earth, formed over thousands of years after an Ice Age sea evaporated, leaving gypsum that broke down into selenium crystals.  

Gypsum stays relatively cool even in high temps.  If you dig your toes in a little, it can actually feel chilly.

It can also retain water better than most types of sand, so there are spots where the deeper layers that have absorbed water are exposed that are as hard as concrete.

We brought sleds that the campground very graciously made available for guests.  The top layer of sand was super soft so it was tough to get much speed.  Or maybe it’s our technique?

(Dad did pretty well, though)

Might be the technique.

After several slides down and climbs up, we were pooped!

We took a a break at the covered picnic tables for lunch.

Halves flipped, our liverwurst and Swiss sandwiches looked like hearts. Thanks, Mom! <3

We returned to the dunes to attempt a bit of the “Alkaline Flat” trail, which is NOT flat and is something like 5 miles of 100% dunes. We made it about 10 minutes before we realized we needed to give up our Lawrence-of-Arabia dreams — deserts be hot.

I got up to one of the higher dunes to get this 360 view before turning back.

Also, the lizards here are pure white!!  They moved way too fast for me to get a photo.

Also also we saw this beautiful blossoming cactus on the road out of the park.

On our return to the campground, we made a pit stop at the other large pistachio farm in Alamogordo, Heart of the Desert.  It’s a lot less touristy and has a beautiful patio overlooking the groves.  They also have a winery.  I got a delicious glass of Cabernet & Mom & Dad shared some delicious pistachio ice cream made with the nuts from Heart of the Desert’s crop. 

At this point Dad looked like his soul had left his body so we split back to the campground for a nice long nap.

We were going to try to cram in a trip to Three Rivers Petroglyphs Site before sundown, but Mother Nature took pity on us and sent a little dust & rain storm to keep us inside, which realistically, we probably needed.  We borrowed Happy Gilmore from the campground library and chilled for their rest of the night.

Next — Petroglyphs & (So Many) Pets!

May 13 - More VoF, Pistachio Farm, Museum of Space & Custard

The wind the night before shook us up pretty good, but we all slept well enough to get up early for another walk through the lava flow before hitting the road again.  Mom and Dad stuck to the paved path, but I picked my way around the lava ridges off and on.  Spotted a chipmunk but no rattlers!  

We found some more wildflowers growing in the formations.

And this beautiful windswept Juniper tree.

Our next stop was Alamogordo, NM, where we set up for a 2-night stay at Mountain Meadows RV Park. It’s a relaxed site, well off the highway, with really friendly management and beautiful views.  

There are wild quail skittering everywhere you look, and one of the long-term campers puts feed out for them near to where we parked, so you could see them out of our windows.  When they run across your path, it looks like someone is pulling a tiny toy bird across the ground by a string.  You can barely see their little legs move!  Also, they sound like Final Fantasy chocobos, which I loved.

We rested a bit, then went to McGinn’s Pistachio Farm for a farm tour.  With a giant concrete pistachio at their entrance, they are larger and more touristy than the other pistachio farm down the street, but their tour was fun and took you through the actual farmland on a jitney.

After the tour, I spent a little too long wine tasting in the gift shop, and we rushed to the New Mexico Museum of Space an hour before closing.  

This was the moon model behind Walter Kronkite during the moon landing broadcast.

We ended up having time to see everything we wanted to, especially because the interactive exhibits were closed due to covid and renovation.  It’s probably in dire need of it by most standards, but I was pleased to see that some of the cheesy 70s displays were still around.  They might not be very accurate but they have a certain charm.  

The most interesting segment was about Ham, the first astrochimp.  He was trained to use basic controls for his orbital launch, and the museum has his training equipment and the actual compartment he launched in on display.  

And his cute little monkey spacesuit!

Ham survived his trip in perfect health and lived out the rest of his life in the National Zoo in DC and a zoological park in NC.  He’s buried on the Museum grounds and visitors still leave bananas on his grave.

The exhibit on rocket navigation computers was really cool to look at but the science of it was far beyond our mere mortals’ comprehensions.  It’s INSANE to me that human beings can put these things together and make them do anything besides burst into a flaming tangle of wires.

The guidance system and timing mechanism of a V-2 rocket.

They also had some quirky astronaut memorabilia and sundries, like John Glenn’s EKG record from the Mercury-Atlas 6 launch and re-entry in 1962.

Lots of food...

Personal hygiene tools...

And an actual toilet from Skylab!

There was also a small but fun Star Trek exhibit with a real Tribble.

Who can forget that classic line — “Hey Scottie, zap me on up!” 

White Sands is also the site of occasional missile test launches, and while driving you’ll pass many signs warning that the main roads may be temporarily closed during launch.  Nothing while we were there, though.

We stopped for frozen custard at Caliche’s on the way down the mountain.  Mom & Dad split a plain vanilla, and I got The New Mexican sundae, topped with sweet & spicy green chile sauce and salted pecans - delicious!

 

It had been a disgustingly long time since we’d set foot in a Walmart, so we had to rectify that.

Back at the campground, I was very excited to use the shower in the private bathrooms.  The camper bathroom is excellent by RV standards, but it doesn’t allow for my typical drying method of spinning in place with my arms outstretched and going “WHOOOOOSH here comes Hurricane Reba!”

Another jam-packed day, so we settled in early.  Here’s another sunset.  You’re welcome.

Next up - White Sands!

May 12 - Valley of Fires & White Oaks ghost town

We packed up and said goodbye to the rodeo horses on Wednesday morning and headed back south.  As we were heading northwest last week, Brad (my brother) found out he’d been scheduled to work south of Santa Fe (connecting power lines to new wind farms via helicopter because he is a badass and the Coolest Sibling.)  So we decided to double back a bit to meet up with him before continuing north.  Unfortunately, the company’s plans changed and he won’t be out here for w while yet.  We’re bummed we won’t get to see him out here, but there’s plenty more to do in this area, including a couple of Tad & Glenda’s favorites from previous trips.

We drove for about 4 hours and went through a sudden thick fog-fall.  I was napping for all of it, but Mom took this cool photo:

The skies were clear as a bell by the time we reached our destination - Valley of Fires, a huge lava flow in the middle of a desert.  

We were lucky enough to snag a nice site at a Bureau of Land Management campground, which are usually first-come first-serve.  You can’t beat this view!

The lava flowed out of vents several thousands years ago, making it the youngest flow in the continental U.S. (official literature says it’s “considered to be” so there may be some rogue toddler or pre-teen lava flows out there which no one’s stumbled across.)

While Mom & Dad paid the camping fee, I played a round of horseshoes and immediately remember that I suck at horseshoes.

After a snack, we rode out to nearby White Oaks, a former gold-rush boom town and current semi-ghost town. 

Gold was discovered in White Oaks in 1879 and it quickly grew from a small tent settlement of grizzled miners to a full-blown hub of commerce with with an “opera house,” many a saloon, a furniture store, an Italian shoemaker, MULTIPLE dentists, doctors, and lawyers, and its own red-light district.  

The only public buildings that remain are a large store that may have been the furniture store and the schoolhouse, and two beautiful Victorian mansions that are currently inhabited. 

This mansion belonged to the mine superintendent and was the last brick structure built in the town.

 The only operating business, besides a very tiny museum in the schoolhouse, is the No Scum Allowed Saloon, which brings customers from hours away. 

From their website:

 Housed in an 1884 building that was first an attorney’s office, then a print shop for one of the town’s early newspapers, the name comes from one of the “Young Guns” movies where White Oaks was depicted as the home “of 756 Respectable People NO SCUM ALLOWED.” For several years, the bar was run on the honor system: Patrons would fetch the key from under a rock, get a drink, leave their money, and lock up.

Unfortunately, it’s only open Thursday-Saturday.  Wednesdays are for scum like us!

After driving the roads surrounding White Oaks and property window-shopping, we drove through Carrizozo, another once-bustling town, now quite sleepy and not fully revitalized but home to a small artist community.

Back at the campsite, Mom and I made quiche for dinner and we walked the paved trail through the lava flow as the sun lowered.

At first glance, the land and the lava appear to be quite barren, with a  couple scrubby bushes and cacti here near there.  But up close, you’ll see a huge variety of plant life.

 

This long stalk is sotol, which is in the asparagus family.  It had many different uses by the local indigenous people, including diaper padding.  Millennia apart, we are all connected by our need to absorb doo-doo.

Sunset view from the dining table.  Next up - Alamogordo, NM