Sledding the White Sands

Before we left Alamogordo last week, we visited the White Sands National Monument. It's 224 square miles of 97% pure gypsum crystals that have been scratched white by the tumbling of the wind (we're not kidding, look it up. The ranger told us so!).

In the gift shop, you can buy plastic discs to slide down the dunes with. They also sell wax so you can go even faster. We bought two discs (and wax of course) and headed into the dunes. After a picnic lunch, we "hit the slopes...ahhh dunes!" It was so much fun we ended up staying six hours and watching the sunset. We like to get the Junior Ranger booklets when we go to the State and National parks so the boys had lots to do and look for while we were at the sands. They both completed the program and added White Sands to their growing list of Jr. Ranger badges!

Joss and Robby went on the ranger-led sunset stroll while Sawyer and Robert continued playing on the dunes. While Robert and Sawyer were on the dunes, they met a group of Japanese tourists who were getting some sunset pictures. Robert lent them the discs and they had a great time sliding down the dunes. They were racing each other and laughing the whole time.

While we were on one of the Nature trail hikes, Sawyer stepped on a stick and hurt his foot. He was tired, cold and hurting so Robert carried him on his shoulders the rest of the walk. We don't know how it happened but Robert turned into a "sand monster" and started chasing Robby while Sawyer laughed his head off. The "monster-face" picture is from that incident.

If you're planning a trip to New Mexico, we really recommend the White Sands just outside of Alamogordo and the Museum of Space History in town.