Sand, not snow

Rich says it is my turn to write about our travels today, so I want to take a minute to backtrack a bit and say how much we enjoyed our drive across Texas. The landscape was so different than we expected and continued to surprise us the whole way across the state. It was not at all as we had envisioned it. The rolling hills and small mountains with all the trees and brush were so beautiful. Who knew there were all those mountain ranges in Texas? When we got a couple of text messages on our cell phone about international travel, we knew we were close to the Mexican border. We kept looking to the south in hopes of seeing the Rio Grande. Going into New Mexico, it did look as we expected. I love the scenery and flat roofs and stucco houses of the southwest.

This morning we drove out to the White Sands National Monument. It was amazing. It looked like the aftermath of a huge blizzard, but it was all white sand. It even glistened like snow in the bright sun because of some selenite mixed in with it. It is in big drifts and people were using round saucer sleds to slide down them. Sand surfing they call it. We climbed up on the big dunes and they were pretty solid. We walked one of the trails and some of it was solid, but most of it was sort of like walking on a beach. It looks like the parks use a blade to clean the roads whenever the sands drifts over them. With the sand piled on the sides of the roads and the big drifts, it looked pretty much like Fond du Lac did a couple of weeks ago when we left it, but that was snow! There are actually a few types of plants that can grow there and survive being buried by sand. The skunkbush sumac is one. When it gets covered up, it just sends up more shoots and ends up as a big mound of sand with brush sticking out of it. The animals that can survive here like it to dig burrows in, hide in it, use it for shade, and eat it. One of the informational signs talked about the Kitt Foxes that live here. It said that they like fast food. Desert cottontales and jackrabbits. Fast food, get it? We thought it was pretty funny. We saw trees that were three forths covered up with sand. Just the tops of them were sticking up out of the dunes. This is one of those places that we will always remember visiting. Then it was time to head out for Tucson. We are at our first hotwire hotel tonight and are quite happy with it. We had aValentine's Day dinner at Sweet Tomatoes and are looking forwards to some sightseeing in Tucson tomorrow. We will be in Scottsdale at Al and Jeans tomorrow night. Garmin says that we have traveled 2613.59 miles so far.