Thursday, April 25, 2013

Alamagordo, White Sands


First stop today was the White Sands National Monument, about 25 miles southwest of Alamagordo, NM. What a fun place! Huge, pure white sand dunes with remarkably fine sand. A favorite thing to do is to buy a glider at the visitor center and slide down the slopes! We found literally hundreds of school kids on a field trip doing just that! (We passed!) The weather was warm enough, but cloudy and pretty windy.
From there, we went back to Alamagordo and visited the National Space History/Hall of Fame Museum. It was OK, but not great. Struck us as pretty out of date - stuff has happened in the last ten years that wasn't there.

Then we headed north up Rt 54 to Tularosa where they grow lots of pistacios and pecans. We stopped at the famous McGinn's Pistacioland for interesting food souvenirs....and the world's largest pistacio!
Then we headed up I25 toward Albuquerque, took a scenic route detour around it, and ended up in Grants, NM. By late afternoon the wind was howling and we had to deal with dust storms. But, it was 78 degrees!
Painfully slow internet at this Days Inn....and a forgettable dinner.

Tomorrow, Flagstaff and Grand Canyon.

(No photos tonight - I don't have the patience to wait to upload. I'll add them tomorrow)

This place is really cool!

Very popular with the locals- but on Thursday?

Like going to the beach

Blowing sand

Space Museum

World's Largest Pistacio

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