Once we arrived at white Sands, of course, the skies opened up. A combination of rain and snow pelted us, but it certainly did not stop our fun. We climbed huge white dunes of the softest,smoothest pristine sand I have ever seen. FYI, it is gypsum mineral that makes the sand that color and without a water wash way, it stays there. I was the bravest of the three of us, climbing the highest dune I could find. I actually had to Facetime Chicken Big and Chicken Little (too cold and wet for them ) to show them what they were missing. They came up after that. Miles and miles of dunes, rolling left, right, East, west, for as far as the eye s could see. It was truly a splendid sight.
Once we were covered in sand and were soaked to our cores,we got back in the car and ventured North. Our next stop - The Very Large Array Telescopes.
Hiccup: SNOw! And when I say SNOW, I mean S N O W!! The snow started falling and continued for the next several, maybe 6 hours. And through the snow, on completely covered roads, we drove. Needless to say, out driver, Big Man, was calm, cool and collected, never letting on, until we were safe.y in Gallup, how hard the drive was. He knows me well enough to not go there when we are in the car.
We pulled up, the only car there, so excited. You could see the giant telescopes in the distance. It was snowing still and about 18 degrees. I pull on the Visitor Center door and,NOTHING. Look at my phone, look at the door, we had missed them by 10 minutes. Are you kidding me - we drove through all that weather and we were not going to see them??? No, how could we disappoint you guys, or ourselves. So, a trek through the snow took us front and center to the telescopes. No words can express how amazing these pieces of technology actually are in person. They are huge, beautiful , lined up in OCD order. And then, wait for it, wait for it, we go to turn and leave and all of a sudden, I notice, in unison, they are all moving. Yep, they all turned about 70 degrees counter clockwise. And then the squeals of delight could be heard throughout the state. Holy crap. That was a site to see, them moving, focusing on something in space to try to intercept.
Back int he car, heat blasting, good tunes playing on the radio, we ventured on through the snow. Finally, close to Gallup, the snow stopped, we put the pedal to the metal , and arrived at our motel, a cool 12 hours after we got int he car this morning. Little girl was excited for a bed to jump upon, me for a cup of hot coffee and a chance to check out the day's pictures. Another great day of road tripping, more to follow. I could get used to this.