White Sands National Park

 2/26/23 - White Sands Day!!!

A few morning photos for your viewing pleasure, from our beautiful campsite at Holloman Lake!

A line from one of our favorite movies (Forrest Gump) "It was so clear Jenny, it looked like they was 2 skies, one on top of the other!"

White Sands National Park!!!!  I really have NO idea what to expect at this Park!

At first, I will admit, I thought to myself...doesn't look any different than the beach!  What's the big deal?

Then we get further into the park!  My mind changed, very quickly, to that of wonder!!!

This is the Alkali Trail (5 miles roundtrip)

Don't lose sight of the RED STICKS or you may be lost forever!

We even ran into our little friend, Abby...not positive if I mentioned her in another post, but she is a young woman, traveling on her own and we COULD'NT believe we ran into her AGAIN (I think this was the third time on this trip)!!!

You can kind of tell from this photo, in the distance, the sand is starting to blow as the wind gets stronger!

And stronger.......I really wish I could figure out how to turn an mov file into a png or jpeg (listen to me with all this technical jargon)  Some of the video I have shows some of the major wind we had today!  If you follow wherethebuckarethey on Instagram, I uploaded a few on there!  Ernie even pulled over to tighten the latches on the camper.  We were told the winds could reach up to 70 MPH!

Anyway, about a 1.75 miles into the trail, I could barely make it to the top of a large dune using my arms AND legs!  WIND WAS CRAZY!  We will be spilling out sand from our shoes for weeks!

THEN, something I have never seen jump onto my phone (kind of like an Amber Alert).  Our eyes grew a little larger and we started seeing the dust, tumbleweeds, and sticks fly through the air!

There SHOULD be mountains in the background of this picture!

Long story, short............we ended up stopping is Las Cruces, NM to get a hotel room (since we were reluctant to pop up the camper in these kind of winds)!  The winds are supposed to lessen later tonight!

Hampton Inn, baby!  AND Another HOT shower today!  I am getting spoiled!

We are going to start for the Meteor Crater in Winslow, AZ tomorrow!

Dinner at an Asian buffet next to the hotel, and then do my nails!!!!!!!!!

Night!