Las Cruces – White Sands

June 17, 2016

We went exploring today and drove to Ruidoso which is a two hour drive to the NE of base camp.  It was reported that Ruidoso was much like Sedona – trust us, it is not even close.  Another option we had was Carlsbad Caverns which we should have gone however we found out that would not have worked out very well as President Obama will be there tomorrow to celebrate Fathers Day with his family.  I’m sure the security would already be in place with restrictions on places you could go.  I think we unknowingly made the right choice.

On our way to Ruidoso we stopped at White Sands National Monument and drove 3 or 4 miles into the dunes.  Wow.  You can drive into the dunes for about 10 miles and the park your car and hike another 8 miles and camp.  The sand was glaring if you took your sunglasses off.  We removed our shoes, socks and rolled up our pant legs and went for a short walk up one of the dunes.  Surprisingly the sand was not hot and if you wiggled your feet down about 2 or 3 inches it was very cool.

We went to the visitor center and stamped my National Parks Passport.  Purchase a couple of souvenirs and watched a short video.  The dunes of sand or composed of gypsum crystals and is the largest gypsum dunes in the world.  it was a very sacred place to the Mescalero Apache who inhabited the area for many years and lived comfortably off of the land – then the white man showed up and ruined it for the Apache who moved away.

I was extremely disappointed after we left White Sands and drove through the missile range – there were no missile launches scheduled for today.  I was tempted to stop at the Holloman Air Force Base and file a complaint however JY insisted I do not.

PRC

We are now in Las Cruces. It’s a short stay as we are leaving tomorrow, Saturday, June 18. We have made a slight change of plans. Instead of driving straight through to Taos on Sunday we decided to break that long drive in half. For those of you that have not done RVing, you might imagine it’s somewhat of a carefree adventure. However, the set up and the take down are a lot of work. As of now it takes us 1.5-2 hours. We hope to shorten the time over our summer trip. So consider that we spend about 3 hours in setting up and taking down along with the drive between sites.

Bonnie and John (sister and brother-in-law) remember, we are still rookies at this. I look forward to the day when this part of RVing will not be such a hassle.

So after setting up in this RV park Monday, I was not feeling so carefree in fact a little ill. I’m sure the heat and elevation did not help. We are going to cut our stay short in Las Cruces and drive to Albuquerque tomorrow. Then we will do something different and spend the night “boondocking” at a casino. This way we do not have to hook up  or unhitch. In fact it is not possible to hook into facilities in a casino parking lot. So, hopefully this will save us some time and effort and there is no cost for staying overnight at a casino. We’ll let you know how it goes as we will not have electricity for the AC. Hopefully it won’t be too warm in Albuquerque tomorrow night.

As Peter indicated, Ruidoso was a bit underwhelming although the area was pretty. Reminded me of Pinetop/Lakeside. White Sands was fun. It brought back memories as John Sem and I camped there many years ago. We did stop at a pistachio farm that was enjoyable as they gave away free samples. Who knew that Margarita flavored pistachios could taste so good?

On our way to Albuquerque tomorrow we will make a short stop in Hatch, the Chili Capital of the World. You know I wouldn’t miss that.