What a fun but exhausting day! We headed for Alamagordo to the space museum and a highly recommended pistachio store. We found both. But before we got there, we drove through the White Sands Missile Range and past Holloman AFB. It was intriguing. We also had to go through one of those illegal alien check points. We passed and were allowed back on the road! Then we stopped at the White Sands National Monument. Neither of us was prepared for what we saw. In the middle of the desert was miles and miles of sugar white sand, almost identical to what you see on the Gulf Coast. When the pavement runs out, the road is then packed sand which resembles snow packed roads in Colorado. It was absolutely fascinating. We both are sorry that we did not know about this place when Derrick was little. He would have really had fun there. We just parked and watched the kids sledding down the mountains of sand. The sand is very cold and very dry. It is only a little coarser than coastal sand. Gulf Coast sand is made of quartz. This sand is gypsum. Pictures make it look like snow but there are cacti growing out of it.
If we had been a little braver, we would have hopped on a sled and screamed down a sand mountain. In Alamagordo the space museum taught us what an immense role New Mexico played in the growth of our missile and space program. New Mexico's terrain is so similar to the moon that Neil Armstrong spent time on a ranch here learning to walk on the sandy soil and rocks. And we learned that the Space Port I questioned yesterday is very real. It was built during the race to build a private aircraft to go into space and back with private passengers. The $10 million contest was won in 2004 by a group from California. The Space Port is still being used but not for the same purpose right now. There is so much more that we saw and did today, but this is already long enough. I could write pages for just today's adventure. It was so interesting. Happy Thanksgiving to all!
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