So my plans certainly don’t go exactly as planned and that’s okay. I had grand plans to get to White Sands National Park last night for sunset and again this morning for sunrise. But as we enjoyed our taco dinner last night we saw the sun beginning to set. We did try to get to the park after dinner, but it was already dark by the time we pulled up, oops. The sunset was still gorgeous from Peggy. I thought the kids were being surprisingly good sports about visiting a park during prime game time until they admitted they just wanted to hear more of our book, LOL. We’ve been reading Hunger Games together during the Peggy drives or downtime. It is a great book and something exciting always seems to be happening so I don’t blame them. As for sunrise, well, the sun rises at 6:15 and the park opens at 7 so we enjoyed our morning without a rush. But that’s not to say we still didn’t get there early.  We all enjoy doing the fun stuff before the mid-day heat! 

This park is awesome! The largest gypsum sand dune in the world. It has one road, just 8 miles and loops back to the only visitor center so it’s an easily explored park in just a half day. And we picked the right half! We had a gorgeous, cool, morning and the place to ourselves. It is truly surreal to be somewhere so beautiful and so enchanting and be alone. It was fantastic. 

We started the day in the dunes playing football, running around, playing frisbee, rolling down hills, climbing over more and more dunes. I did keep the camera out of the fine sand while we played but definitely took tons of pictures as the day went on. I hiked back to the car for umbrellas, so we lasted longer as it got sunnier out… and the umbrellas turned out to be fun props for the kids (thinking of Ms. Debbie!). The dunes themselves don’t get that hot. The gypsum doesn’t absorb the sun. We learned this is the wettest desert with a collection of water under the dunes that keeps them cool, even damp underneath which also keeps them from blowing away. But that didn’t keep us from getting hot! So by mid-day we ventured back to the visitor center to learn more and earn the Jr. Ranger badge.  

Next stop: PistachioLand! I wanted to see the “world’s largest pistachio nut” because it’s been awhile since I’ve had my fill of concrete foods. Turns out it’s not just a roadside attraction — it’s a full-on tourist trap and we loved it! We tried the pistachio ice cream, we bought various flavors of pistachios that are all grown, processed, seasoned and packaged right there on site — so good! We even took the tour through the orchard and learned all about the farming of pistachios which was really quite interesting! The giant pistachio sculpture was in honor of their dad who started the farm and also loved putting his family in car to seek out similar roadside attractions. I thought it was a son’s sweet tribute to his dad, so I’ve requested the same from my girls – a roadside attraction in my honor when I die. Maybe giant ski poles on route 26 in Upton, LOL. 

After our nutty stop we drove from Alamogordo to Roswell, NM and the alien sightings started immediately and never stopped. Even their Dunkin Donuts has a massive alien out front! We stayed at the Red Barn RV Park and found it was a surprisingly charming spot just outside a fairly tacky town. Luckily we like charming and tacky! So we went out to dinner for the first time since Pigeon Forge (which feels like a lifetime ago) just to explore the downtown a little more.

Another day that we’ll remember as awesome! And probably not remember that Murphy had his first accident in the RV, that we kept putting off lunch until we were starving, that the RV park had NO internet and sad shower water pressure, and that we had a couple tires with low pressure that we needed to address. It’s not all perfect but perfect is never our goal!

Tuesday, July 27, 2021