White Sands and Snakes

On Tuesday morning we headed off toward Albuquerque NM, and on the way we stopped at White Sands National Monument.  Whenever I think of White Sands I always think of the missile testing range, but the national monument is a vast and gorgeous natural formation of snow white sand dunes.  We were lucky to get a visit in as the Missile Range had tests scheduled on Monday and Wednesday - which closes the monument AND the highway.

White Sands lies in a basin that's not connected to the ocean, so any gypsum in the rainwater ends up laying around on the surface.  Those crystals (aka selenite) are blown around all day long and they eventually get smashed down into a fine grain.  You can actually see the wind blowing them around, and they ripple across the dunes.

I was hoping to see some bleached earless lizards... but gypsum crystals do not hold heat well, so nobody was out warming themselves.  The dunes were cool to the touch, and don't get hot even in the summer months.  They also constantly change shape and position, often burying plants and anything else in their path.  Anna beat me in a race to the top of this one.

As we explored the wondrous dunes our ears were bombarded by the ridiculously loud rumble of military jets.  Turns out, right next door is Holloman AFB - home of the 49th Fighter Wing that flies the F-22 Raptor.  We watched them screaming across the sky, doing touch-and-go's, and flying in formation.  There was one flying super high and crazy fast - it appeared to be rolling and twisting and you could see the vapor appear and disappear as it went.  I was rapt.  My phone camera failed me miserably, so I stole this F-22 with wingtip vortices off the interweb...

After we left, while driving alongside the White Sands Missile Range on Route 70/54, a tank crossed the highway up ahead of us.  How often do you see that?  The driver looked really serious so I didn't stop for a picture.

The next day we hit Old Town Albuquerque... founded in 1706 by the Spanish, it's 8-10 blocks of adobe buildings centered around a square.  The architecture and colors were beautiful.

There were a lot of shops selling junk, but we found one cool non-profit shop selling goods produced by local elderly craftsman.  I can get behind supporting that kind of business.

We came upon this Christmas tree made of used water bottles.  Damn I hate those things!!  (the bottles, not the trees)  But I figured this was a nicer alternative to letting them collect in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch <EOR>

Passed by the Rattlesnake Museum, so being a pessimist I had to see what kindof crap they were peddling.  It's apparently the largest collection of different species of live rattlesnakes in the world.  There were poisonous creatures everywhere, and tortoises roaming free on the floor.  

We spent 20 minutes waiting for gold fish that was eating off the back of a snapping turtle's head to venture into it's mouth.  He never did.  Then we were entranced for hours by a presentation of David Attenborough's "Life in Cold Blood".  Turned out to be a fun visit.

Wow.  We've travelled 7300 miles in nearly 6 weeks, and our time is almost up.  In the morning we're kicking off the trek home with a big drive out to Sedona, Arizona.  But we've got a few more things we want to see along the way!