Planes & White Sand

Day Two of our road trip started with a quick trip to the Pima Air and Space Museum. The docent was very proud of the fact that it was the largest private collection of planes and the 3rd largest museum of its kind in the nation. There were 4 hangars filled with planes and many, many planes outside. We glanced at the outside planes as we walked from one hangar to the next. At 104 degrees (before noon), it was just too hot to stay outside any longer than necessary.


We saw a replica of the Wright plane (the oldest plane), the Bumblebee (the smallest plane), a Blackhawk (the fastest plane), an A10 (the ugliest plane) and many more. Our docent gave us a plethora of information, even more than I cared to know. And if you know me, that's hard to believe. After all, I'm the one who needs to read every placard at every museum I visit.

After several hours, we decided we needed to rescue our car and its contents from the dreaded heat, so we said our farewells to Tucson and headed East. Our next destination was Las Cruces, New Mexico. I had been told by a teacher at my school that we should visit Old Mesilla - sort of like San Diego's Old Town. She recommended a restaurant and we think we found it, but it was closed. As a matter of fact, just about everything in Old Mesilla was closed. It was more like a ghost town.

We went to the one restaurant that was open called La Posta. It was billed as the best stop on the Butterfield Coach line, and the stomping grounds of Billy the Kid and Pancho Villa. The food was decent and the decor was quaint and appealing. We were tired from our four hour drive but we still had another hour until our next stop, so we finished up our dinner and drove north to White Sands National Monument. 


It was a long lonely road for 40 miles or so through the White Sands Missile Range. We arrived at the Park at dusk. We missed the sunset stroll with the park ranger, but we spent a decent amount of time driving around the dunes and getting out to climb them.


I'm so glad we arrived when the sun was setting. If we had been there mid-day, we would have been blinded by all of the white sand. It looked like snow or mounds of very fine white sugar. We hiked up one hill and the wind was crazy! It was disorienting to see white every where you looked while trying to maintain your balance as the wind threatened to blow you away.


The sand was interesting, parts of it were hard and packed like rock. But as you climbed the dunes, it would feel like you were walking on a solid surface and then suddenly the sand would give way and you were calf deep in sand. There were some children sledding down the dunes on saucers, and we found an abandoned piece of cardboard that Zach tried to use for a ride. He didn't have any luck, but we laughed trying to make it work. It was a fun ending to a long day.


As we left White Sands, the boys mentioned that the sky looked like storm clouds. And on the drive out we saw lightning, but never any rain. We arrived in El Paso Texas around 10:30 p.m. and spent the rest of the night washing off sand, uploading photos to Facebook and checking e-mails. It was a good day. 


Today is Joe's 21st birthday. We are escaping the triple digits and spending the day at Carlsbad Caverns where the temperature underground is in the 50s. Good thing we packed jackets!