I got my crap all packed up first and then started rearranging the contents of the van as today we're hitting the road again, this time for the destination of Alamogordo, NM and more specifically, White Sands National Park.
But first? Coffee. We headed back to The Little Blue house for another breakfast as everyone enjoyed the food, but RAVED about the coffee! Stupid good stuff!
Same today; SO DANG good!!! We hit the road. It's roughly a 3 hour drive and a lot of it was on two lane mountain roads. On this particular drive, we witnessed such intense changes in landscape that you were left in awe. There was the desert that we were leaving, mountains (30 degree temp drop), national forests, and even grasslands with cattle feeding. The changes were not really gradual, for the most part, they were stunning, stark changes in what you were seeing. It was truly amazing to experience and witness.
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| This is a google map of our days drive. You can kind of see from this where the changes in scenery may have occurred. |
These first couple of pictures are from the drive. Just mountains and the great expanse that surrounds them!
The first thing that we did when we got to Alamogordo, is visit Pistachio Land. We felt sort of silly going their but once we realized that Ozzy Osbourne had also visited and was a fan, we ALL felt better!
Actually, we didn't care about visiting here or whatever anybody thought about it either. All 4 of us like pistachios and that's all that matters.
We enjoyed our visit and had a bit of fun here. Rob bought a shirt for him and one for his girlfriend as well as a key chain of her name. We did a wine tasting and bought a bottle that we had to protect like eggs coming home from the grocery store for the rest of vaca.
While tasting a few of the wines, the young lady hosting struck up conversation of where we from and found out, obviously, that we were on vacation. She asked if we had been to White Sands yet. We told her that we were heading there immediately after leaving the stachio's and she responded, "Oh good! It's cool during the day but you should go back around sunset because it's like you're on a different planet!". Well, by golly, that sounds interesting, doesn't it???
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| Of course we had to get a picture of the critters by the worlds largest pistachio, right!? They were thrilled. But this is akin to where Grandma and Grandpa lived in Crystal Lake Iowa and having your picture taken with the world's largest bullhead! |
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| Pistachio trees. I have to admit here that I have NEVER considered what a pistachio grew on! I didn't care. The only thing that I cared about was whether the next few that I pulled out of the bag were the ones that were easy to extract the actual edible nut. I hate the ones that take a friggin' hammer and chisel to extract the nut. Is there not a way to sort those little bugger's out when they're packaging those long, slender bags that you can buy in gas stations where they're already free'd from captivity and you just shove them in your pie hole? Do they use the "easy open" ones for those bags? I need to to know this stuff! |
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| OOOOooohhhhh... they're gorgeous! |
Once we had our fill of Pistachio Land, we headed down the road to White Sands. First stop, of course, was the visitor center. Have I mentioned previously in this post or any of the other posts, that it's HOT!!! Good Lordy!!! I'm German on both sides of my mom and dads family and that causes a bit of a sweating problem in Iowa. It creates a HUGE sweating problem down here in Satan's kitchen!! As a result, I went into the visitor center just to be in the air conditioning, which was set too high by my German standards, but it was better than baking to death outside.
Rant time. I'm fat. This fact cannot be hidden. I also really like to smoke meats. This also would be hard to hide. Why then, when a fat man like myself, is in the fire-like heat like this, does my fat not render and melt away? At least a little bit? Weird thoughts pop into your head as you think about dying in the heat...
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| We have not been to the Alamo so my brain may be a bit skewed here, but this building reminded me a bit of the Alamo AND since we had just seen the Ozzy Osbourne exhibit, I was reminded of the time when he took a leak on the Alamo and the Texas cop who had arrested him, saying, "You pissing on the Alamo is pissing on America, Boy!". LOL. My brain needs some work... |
Off to the actual dunes now for some hiking and hopefully, sledding. Before we left home, we bought a couple of cheapy sleds to try the sand sledding.
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| Our first stop. Sort of a boardwalk out thru the dunes, which made me think that they don't really want you traversing the actual sands itself. Hmmm... |
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| It never ceases to amaze me where God will command a plant to grow!! I've said this in previous posts like the one where we hiked across the volcanic basin in Hawaii, and in a crack in the hardened lava bed, there was a plant growing with vibrant colors displayed!! Simply amazing. |
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| My fams! Shades required out here as it is stupid bright like when the sun comes out in Iowa after a good snow. You may hear another similar reference later on too... |
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| The only way to make God's landscape better is to put fams in the foreground! I love these two guys! |
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| Hiking up one of the dunes in the hopes of sledding back down it. |
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| Did it work? Now well, is the answer. They tried a few different times and also tried different techniques, but really, to no avail. Not sure if you have to wax your toboggins like you do a surfboard... Or so I've heard about surfboards. I don't know what the heck I'm talking about. |
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| That little shack is a bathroom. |
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| More evidence of trying to sled. |
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| The family having the picnic on the far right of the pic will figure into the story in a bit... |
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| I cannot explain why I love this picture so much, but I do! If you knew Rob, you know that in this moment, he is talking out loud, to no particular person, but he's definitely talking and it's most likely hysterical! |
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| My unkempt self and my bride; the lady who makes all of this stuff happen!!! |
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| There are these little areas of parking lot where they have a bunch of these things. They are individual family picnic areas. |
We ended up giving our two orbital discs intended for sand sliding to another family who only had one, but had 3 quite young kiddos (the family having the picnic in the photo above). They were elated, as we were, but for very different reasons! When we came back at sunset, we saw the same family and all 3 kiddos were attempting to slide down the dunes! MONEY!!!
Once we left the dunes, it was still too early to check into our hotel. Caleb was itching for a game of mini-golf, maybe to avenge his embarrassing loss to Dear ol' Dad in Orlando the summer before (documented in detail here), who knows? Heh heh...
The only place that we could find that was open was inside of a mall, and then inside of a pizza place. It smelled very good in there and we were all excited that it was indoors and thus, air-conditioned. Well... not so fast. It was HOT in there. We all played the first round of 9 holes, but Mama Chaos just wanted to sit for the back nine (same course). I won the first nine but Caleb cleaned house on the second round and I made a spectacle of myself at the end of the second round. No details to be released but it is second only to the time when, in Waterloo Iowa, at a min-golf/driving range out by the airport, I acted in such an inappropriate manner to cause my dad to truly collapse to the ground in laughter. I wish that event was captured on video, but alas, it's only a memory to the 3 or 4 of us that were there that evening. Maybe that's better? I don't know.
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| Playing mini golf and also documenting that it was HOT!!! Rob will be mortified when he realizes that I posted this picture with his sweat on display!! We were all in the same boat! |
After 18 holes of sweaty mini-golf, we're a hungry bunch of portly peeps. We hit up a place on the main drag thru town called Rizos Mexican. It was purdy dang good!
After our meal, it was an acceptable time to check into our hotel so we headed that direction to do just that. As we were unloading our stuff to take it up to the room, Caleb informed me that we were wicked low on ice in the cooler. So after we got everything that we thought we needed up to the room and Caleb find Impractical Jokers on the tv, I grabbed the ice bag from the bucket to go fix the cooler situation.
I positioned the bag like a champ with all 14 fingers spread like crazy to keep from wasting ice. I started filling it and everything looks good and I look like a genius, but I remembered last vaca when the ice would fall betwixt the slots on the tray of the ice machine, causing troubles when you tried to walk away with your new-found riches!
So, I stopped pressing the button and waited for the machine to catch up and stop its dispensing. It went on for a while!
I tried to lift the bag and my memory proved correct, the first several cubes pushed the bag thru the slots on the tray so that the bag was now hooked.
Then, it happened...
The tray popped off of the machine and dropped to the floor, bouncing and making a tremendous racket. At the same time that was going on, the HUGE pile of ice that I had previously thought was going inside the bag, but had really been piling up BEHIND the bag, was both spilling out onto the floor and going down the drain unabandoned on VERY thin plastic making a horrifically loud noise!!
The sounds, all combined, sounded like a combo of cheap tin and a plastic stampede!! It was SO LOUD and seemed like it lasted for a full minute while people were walking by and seeing my inability to function in a basic society!
I cleaned up as best as I could, which meant kicking 4 pounds of errant ice cubes back under the machine in which they were born, so the could melt and go down the drain, but after that, I got the heck out of there in search of a bag of ice that I could more simply add to the cooler.
I went to an Albertsons (grocery store) and they were out. The cashier wished me luck on my quest, which I thought was odd. I went to several gas stations after that and found the same situation, no ice.
The dude at probably the fourth or fifth station mumbled, "Wal Mart's your friend".
Holy Lord!! Those are words no man ever wants to hear!!! The land of mullets and pajamas is your friend??? Ugh...
I head back up the road to Wally World and they had about 10 - 12 bags of ice left. As I learned, and I'm sharing for your future trips, when you're in the desert areas, the ice runs out everywhere around supper time. Interesting...
So back at the hotel, Caleb had found the local schedule of Impractical Jokers, so we watched a bit of that before it was time to head back to White Sands.
I was probably the most excited to head back as we're all super tired, however, about 1.5 hours later, we were all SUPER excited that we went! I wrote in my journal that it was like a scene out of Star Wars. Let's see if everyone agrees with that assessment!
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| Not quite sunset, but having been here earlier in the day, we had an idea of where we wanted to be once the sun was getting low. That being said, thee road/parking lot, looks a LOT like a road in Iowa having been plowed after a snowstorm. |
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Now we're getting there! A little story to lead up to how I got to this vantage point.
A little sidebar story here: I had to pee. We had driven past one of those "little shacks" that I had mentioned earlier in the post, and it seemed to not have been very far from the lot where we parked. I walked back to that room of rest, which eventually seemed like a half mile and grabbed the door handle of the one closest to me... locked. Not good... My immediate thought was that they close them at a certain time. Now, I'm willing to go potty anywhere, anytime, but, I hold high respect for State parks, let alone, National parks, so I'm a bit convicted. There are two doors on this particular facility, so I walk to the other door and find it unlocked. I was happy, but so was the 3" (that 's inch) lizard who ran into the bathroom, underneath the door, before me. Oh man... Now I'm considering if I have to pee that bad!?!? It turns out that I do, so I proceed, because I REALLY have to go! There he is... stalking me in the corner by the sink. Ok, ok, I think I can deal with this. I go over to the toilet, several feet away from the terrorist, and do my business. I did have to touch the toilet seat so I'm wishing to wash my hands. Jeesh. He's staring at me with steely, killer eyes and I'm just imagining the fangs this cold blooded killer may have. Keep in mind that I'm talking out loud to this thing, as well as coaching myself thru this, out loud, as I did my bidness and now trying to figure out how to wash my cabbage collector's while this beast is plotting my death!! I managed to wash my digits without the terrorist moving at all. I grabbed the paper to dry my hands and head out the door when the terrorist had had enough of me and went into motion! I screamed something unholy in a ridiculously high voice in his general direction and fled the building! Once outside again, I brushed myself off and surveyed the potential damage. I seemed to be fine, other than a racing heartbeat. I survived, AND had successfully relieved myself!
I started back towards the dunes and started trying to climb up. This proved to be just about as difficult of a challenge as peeing in a public room of rest with a deadly lizard! However, I noticed when I had completed nearly half of the difficult climb, that the dude who had the other door locked at the bathroom, was whistling happily and also knew who the dumb*** was in the other stall, had heard my full, high pitched, conversation with the deadly lizard AND was now watching said dumb*** try to climb up the side of the dune!!! And that's my "little" story.... One more instance where I remind myself that I'll never see this guy again. Hopefully. |
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That's Rob and Caleb down in the parking lot playing catch with baseball gloves. They quickly realized that if you didn't catch the ball, you were punished by a ball that would roll FOREVER on this type of ground! LOL!
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| I think that little black dot on top of the hill by that vehicle is Mama Chaos. |
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