Day 239
On our first day here, we were warned that temperatures could drop below freezing with expectations of snow in the mountains. With all the crazy storms happening in the US, it would only be logical to assume something could happen in New Mexico. Last night, an unexpected storm front swung into the valley. The Rv faired well through the wind and snow, and my concern for the water lines freezing turned out to be only concerns. In the morning the campground employees were immediately on top of shovelling snow from the Rv and plowing the roads.
By mid morning the skies began to clear up, leaving nothing but a blue sunny sky, I guess Lori and I get a snowy Christmas after all. We decided to go and explore the area and see just how much snow had fallen.
They brought snow plows down from the mountains to clear the roads
Lori walking Gizmo as he tries to climb the snow bank.
The wind created some pretty big snow drifts.
JUST KIDDING!
Today we head to the White Sands National Park, located twenty minutes west of Alamogordo in the centre of the of the WSMR missile range. We arrived at the National Park in once piece and proceeded to the visitors centre to learn about the white sands. The sands cover an area 228 square miles of the Tularosa Basin and is completely comprised of gypsum that has been washed down from the San Andres Mountains.
Because the valley is a basin, during the spring runoff the gypsum rich water gathers in two lakes at the base of the mountain range. When the summer months arrive, the lakes will evaporate leaving behind fragile gypsum crystals that are easily blown by the wind, and smashed into the fine white sand. Now add a time table of twelve thousand years and you get the white sands desert.
After we returned from Narnia, we headed away from the missile range too New Mexico’s largest pistachio for a photo op and a little shopping at McGinn’s pistachio farm.
Over the course of time, creatures adopted the white desert as their home. Naturally being darker colours to blend into other parts of the valley, the darkest of the creatures were picked off by predators, leaving the lighter creatures to create lighter and lighter offspring over the centuries.
These dammed photo bombers brought their dogs this time.
The park had these amazing picnic areas spread throughout a section of the dessert. Hopefully we will have a lunch here before we leave.
Pistachioland.
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