THE GOOD
Yesterday is over! First, we did get to WalMart to get Ted some cheap sneakers so he didn't walk the dunes in flip-flops. Then it was a long day on the road. White Sands NM was such a unique place. As you climb over the mountains to get there, you're looking straight down into the flat valley that is the White Sands Missile Range. There is a museum there, but we were headed for the National Monument and didn't mess with getting on the Post.
Once you go another 25 miles or so, the flat scrubland desert has a slight rise to the west that's white. You get closer, and the slow movement of the dunes is visible by the fact that some of the parks bordering fence is now completely "duned over". The dunes approach, but never reach the road at this point.
Before you actually get to the park entrance, you need to pass through a Homeland Security Checkpoint. Leave that, and you're at the park entrance in a mile. A nice visitor's center and gift shop are there. Usually we leave the shopping until the end of the visit so the kids can pick based on what they experienced, but I knew that this is where they sell the snow saucers for sledding down the dunes. We picked purple. It wasn't her favorite color or his, so it was fair.
At all the National Parks I now expect that manning will be at a minimum, but the lady in the gift shop said we'd get a map when we entered the main gate. When we got to the main gate, it was unmanned. No map. Luckily, I had researched it on the net beforehand and knew there was one loop road so we couldn't get lost.
The first stop was the 1 mile Dunes Nature Trail. One steep climb up the first dune and the rest was a mildly rising and falling loop trail on top of the dune following sign narration by Katy the Kit Fox. Well marked, signage appropriate for 7-12 year olds (lucky me), and we saw some unexpected vegetation. The sand is 90% gypsum and Ted decided that the consistency was more like flour than sand. Coarse flour. Claire thought it looked like salt. We saw stink beetles, flowers, lizards, birds, and great root formations, as well as the dunes.
When we finished there, we headed to the snowy dunes to sled. The clerk had advised us to soap, wax, or sunscreen our disc for the best slippage. Sunscreen it was. We had a snack and the kids climbed the closest dune for their first ride. It certainly wasn't as slick as snow, but they had a great time. They went up and down for 40 minutes. Steep climbing up, but since it packs more like flour than beach sand, it wasn't terrible for them. I exceeded the posted weight limit for the disc (150 lbs), so no freefall for me.
Then it was back in the car.
THE BAD
The first hour and a quarter in the car, sadly was a backtracking trip. We waved to our hotel again as we passed it and the real driving began. Soon we were in Texas, and traffic in El Paso added to our long drive. But at least there was stuff to look at. Things to count. After that, it was just west Texas, straight, occasional rock formations and hills, but not much else. So we won't dwell. It had to be done. At least the speed limit was 80.
THE UGLY
Our hotel. A Quality Inn in Fort Stewart, though I think they have some nerve keeping that in the name. How bad is it when you write your complaint email to Choice Hotels from the hotel room? Plumbing that doesn't drain properly, bulbs hanging out of fixtures, crooked loose headboards, a pool with brown algae on the bottom that you could see where someone had tried to vacuum the steps and 2 feet beyond (there were trails in the algae), but not much effort beyond that. The hot tub was 1 foot low so the jets just made a sucking sound. And a bunch of nit-picky stuff that isn't worth going into here. But the linens were clean, the staff friendly (even if unable to fix anything), and they had electricity to recharge all of our "stuff".
THE FUTURE
Today, it's off to San Antonio. 4 hours of driving (a relatively short day), but not too much along the way to see or do. Hopefully, we arrive in time to do laundry, then head to see the Alamo at night. Tomorrow will be Alamo sight seeing and a short drive to Katy.
See today's pictures.
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