White Sands National Monument

Traveled 425 miles today from Santa Rosa, NM to Chambers, AZ.  Cell service was spotty for a good part of Rte. 54.  Points of interest were Lincoln County - Billy The Kid Country and Carrizozo Malpais (Spanish for badlands).

We stopped in Carrizozo at a restroom, and according to G, Kirk learned to play the tuba!  Meanwhile, in the women's room the handicap stall was occupied, and the other stall was missing the door, but a large, black trash bag was available to use as a handy temporary curtain.  Joan was so kind as to hold the garbage bag up to shield me in the stall from the casual observer.

The Valley of Fires is located in Carrizozo in central NM.  The Little Black Peak is a volcano vent.  Lava flowed out of the earth in the Tularosa Valley covering many square miles of buckled, twisted basalt lava, part of an extensive flow up to 165 feet thick and over 45 miles long that originated from several nearby volcanoes.

 

Google Image

 

 

Lava Flow

 

 

We visited the White Sands National Monument at Alamogordo, NM.  The white dunes encompass ten acres at an elevation of 4,235 feet.  The sand dunes are gypsum. 

 

 

Joan and I rented sleds and climbed the dunes to "sand sled."  We waxed the bottom of the sleds for more speed, but it wasn't nearly as fast as snow sledding.