As you drive the road to the park, you see mountains and dessert, then all of a sudden you see some white mounds with greenery, then more mounds with a little less greenery. As you go further into the park, the white of the mounds is as white as a freshly fallen snow.
The wind is always blowing the sand, so you can see that they plow the road and parking lots. There is a point where they do not pave the roads and you are just driving on the packed sand. The park is near Holliman Air Force Base and is closed when they do certain trainings. One of the sections of the park was closed because there was a plane crash there during training (no one was hurt) but there is fuel clean up, etc to do. The parking lot for this was a good example of how the wind blows the sand because it wasn’t plowed and you could see the buildup.
The park is 275 square miles, the largest gypsum dunefield in the world.
We did the nature trail hike and learned how the plants and animals survive. Here are a couple of interesting adaptations.
Many of the animals outer color has changed to camouflage them on the white sand.
Most of the animals are nocturnal due to the heat of the sun and the reflection of the sun off the white sand.
The trees and bushes have large root systems and can be much taller than they appear depending on how much is under the sand.
Apache Mice live at White Sands but they NEVER drink water. They get all the water they need from their food. Their food is seeds, which they stash in a cool underground pantry where the seeds absorb moisture, which helps them get more water.
There is a winged bug called the Tarantula Hawk. It is a loner bug. Their prey is the tarantula spider, which is bigger, harrier and more venomous than the Tarantula Hawk. When the bug finds a tarantula away from its lair, a death match begins. If the bug wins, she paralyzes the spider, lays an egg inside it. She then drags it to her hideout and seals it underground. After hatching, the young bug eats the spider from the inside out.
After the hike we went sledding. You heard me, we went sledding on the sand. They rent sleds and you can pick any mound you want off a parking lot and sled. We were all by ourselves on this one mound. It was alot of fun going down, but going back up was a workout with the sand sliding under your feet. The more you went down the same track, the faster it got.
A couple of additional pics.
The other activity we did in this area was go to the Toy Train Depot. The story was that about 90% of the collection was one mans and his wife had enough of it in her house. So he started this little “museum”. For $5 a person you could have the long or short tour. We said, what the heck, we will do the long one. It was 2 hours long. The place is run by volunteers and Phil was our guide. The first hour was sitting and learning all about trains, the origin of the steam engine, etc. He would ask questions and some we did good with the answers, others not so much. It was alot of interesting information. It was an older gentleman, with a long beard and hair, railroad overalls and hat. His story telling reminded us alot of Dave’s Dad.
The second hour was looking through the museum of the model railroads that they had set up in the depot and all of the collection. The various sizes of model railroads, there are 7. There was a pink/pastel color train that they tried to get girls involved in model railroading. However, girls wanted them to look real and it was not a hit. The sign said that the “Barbie” model is now worth between $7,000 and $9,000. The largest/longest steam engine built was called the Big Boy. They had a model of the Big Boy, which helped you see how it could go around curves by shifting it’s body. The final room was a large set up that had been done by a train club. It was a true piece of Americana.
We are now in the Tucson area at a state park near Saguaro National Park. It’s SuperBowl Sunday and we are looking forward to seeing our Eagles Fly. GO BIRDS.
Til next time.
Sledding looks like fun! SMO
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