But it was January 20th before we could finally do something about it...almost 30 days later...
I'm quite embarrassed to say it took us so long to deal with it.
But...we have visited our last National Park.
It was December 21st when President Trump officially signed White Sands from National Monument status to being a National Park.
It was number 62...the last National Park added to the list.
And we can now say, we have visited our last National Park...
We drove through the entrance of White Sands NATIONAL PARK on MLK Day, which also happened to be one of the 5 free days in 2020 for visiting the National Park system (ever thrifty, we used an Excel spreadsheet and a PowerPoint deck to decide it would be better to just use our NP Lifetime Pass at 80 bucks rather than try to visit all 62 on the 5 free days.)
And January 20th was a lovely, sunny day, temps in the mid 50's, and since a free day, busier than we expected, but it worked out OK in this case, in spite of Rule 10: Avoid Humanity.
There's really not a whole lot to do at White Sands. There is of course the white sand - gypsum actually. A whole loooot of gypsum!
A hyper-fine, very "soft to the touch" white sand which makes it unique and is typically the sand used in hour glasses.
It starts in the adjacent mountains as gypsum embedded in the rock, which gets broken into smaller fragments, then further separated into fine gypsum sand which is carried mainly by rain water that washes it into the park.
This is more common of a process than The Great Sand Dunes NP, which is primarily wind blown sand collected from a long wide valley.
And anyone who has read the blog knows, we like the wind and we like the sand (whooo - love that beach sand!!!) wild, unpredictable and largely untamed.
There are also hiking trails in the white sand...but come-on, for a hike in sand there better be a big beautiful cerulean blue ocean waiting at the end of the trek (that's a blue mountain range in the distance...not the Caribbean!)
Channeling my best Ansel Adams helps the vegetation stand out...
And there is the 8 mile drive...
The paved road leading into the park quickly turns to white sand...which is plowed by big yellow road graders, all of which triggered sweaty palms, immediate return of my nervous twitch, flashbacks and hallucinations...
White Sands looked just like a snowy, poorly plowed Pennsylvania roadside.
We could have been back on Windy Hill!!!
And to make matters even worse, there were families of kids everywhere, riding saucers and toboggans down the sand hills...just like PA...
Hmmm...now if we could ski back in PA with temps in the 50's...
Wonder if we could just load up some gypsum on Clyde and maybe install a ski lift back on Windy Hill???
Let the adventure continue...
It was number 62...the last National Park added to the list.
And we can now say, we have visited our last National Park...
We drove through the entrance of White Sands NATIONAL PARK on MLK Day, which also happened to be one of the 5 free days in 2020 for visiting the National Park system (ever thrifty, we used an Excel spreadsheet and a PowerPoint deck to decide it would be better to just use our NP Lifetime Pass at 80 bucks rather than try to visit all 62 on the 5 free days.)
And January 20th was a lovely, sunny day, temps in the mid 50's, and since a free day, busier than we expected, but it worked out OK in this case, in spite of Rule 10: Avoid Humanity.
There's really not a whole lot to do at White Sands. There is of course the white sand - gypsum actually. A whole loooot of gypsum!
It starts in the adjacent mountains as gypsum embedded in the rock, which gets broken into smaller fragments, then further separated into fine gypsum sand which is carried mainly by rain water that washes it into the park.
This is more common of a process than The Great Sand Dunes NP, which is primarily wind blown sand collected from a long wide valley.
And anyone who has read the blog knows, we like the wind and we like the sand (whooo - love that beach sand!!!) wild, unpredictable and largely untamed.
There are also hiking trails in the white sand...but come-on, for a hike in sand there better be a big beautiful cerulean blue ocean waiting at the end of the trek (that's a blue mountain range in the distance...not the Caribbean!)
Channeling my best Ansel Adams helps the vegetation stand out...
And there is the 8 mile drive...
The paved road leading into the park quickly turns to white sand...which is plowed by big yellow road graders, all of which triggered sweaty palms, immediate return of my nervous twitch, flashbacks and hallucinations...
White Sands looked just like a snowy, poorly plowed Pennsylvania roadside.
We could have been back on Windy Hill!!!
And to make matters even worse, there were families of kids everywhere, riding saucers and toboggans down the sand hills...just like PA...
Hmmm...now if we could ski back in PA with temps in the 50's...
Wonder if we could just load up some gypsum on Clyde and maybe install a ski lift back on Windy Hill???
Let the adventure continue...
Did you climb up that sand hill? Perspective is always best from top... we learned that many years ago!
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