Day 81: White Sands National Park

We planned to start the day with a three-hour drive to White Sands National Park, New Mexico, with no real plans for where to stay that night.

I have been pretty good about avoiding all debris on the highways this trip, but couldn’t safely get around this box. Well, it ended up getting stuck to the underside of the car tow bar, which everyone thought was pretty funny. It did fall off as soon as I slowed down getting off the freeway.

It was SO windy today. The boys dreaded going to a sand dune in the crazy wind, but today was the day, so we were going to make the most of it. They did both get to see their first tumble weed, rolling across the freeway today.

I had talked up sledding at the sand dunes, but also tried to let the boys know that it could be a total flop and super slow. With that in mind, our first stop was Alamongordo to buy sleds at the Big 5 sporting goods store (since the park’s visitor center, where they sell and rent them, was closed). I’d read that you really need to wax the sleds, but they didn’t have any. Fortunately, we had bought candles for an art project that we never did, so we used that for the bottom of the sleds.

We parked at the White Sands Visitor Center to take the car out to the dunes, since most of the road was packed gypsum. It really looked and sounded like we were driving on a snow-packed road.

Once we found our spot to explore, the kids took their socks and shoes off and were racing up the dunes in no time. The sand was magical: it was cool to the touch and flowed like water on the surface. The wind erased footsteps quickly and left behind these incredible groves in the sand.

The sleds were fun, but after a few rides we were all back to running and climbing instead.

A few attempts at family photos, but this only lasted a few minutes before we were off playing again.

We found some garbage blowing by and picked it up as it approached. The highlight was definitely finding an old water bottle which I will give you one guess to see what this turned into.

There was hardly anyone at the dunes, giving us so much space to run and play. It really felt like we had it all to ourselves.

We finally headed back to get the RV and get on the road again. Everyone was on board for some more driving today to get a shorter drive tomorrow. That meant a Walmart overnight again, which no one really seems to mind.

The kids both commented that this may have been their favorite day of the trip. Crazy since this day included five hours of driving. The dunes really were that much fun.