White Sands National Park

Last full day of our trip.  I was a MESS.  Seriously, I couldn't get my crap together and smile.  All I could think about was leaving, and even Hannah told me that I was as bad as "Daddy" when he's ending a vacation.  Hannah decided to try some of my curl cream, and holy smokes did it bring out the natural curl in her hair!

Before leaving El Paso, I found a jewelry shop.  My kids associate New Mexico with Native American jewelry, but being so close to Mexico, I don't think there's much of an indigenous population nearby.  When I finally found a shop that held a sparse selection of jewelry, the woman told us it was mostly Navajo, and it was "from up north". It was strange to not see the inlaid jewelry of the Zuni tribe which is what I usually like, and it was also strange to see silver jewelry that isn't being constantly polished, because let's be honest--silver that has sat awhile and is tarnished isn't exactly appealing to the eye.  However, I found a ring that I thought would look nice on Hannah's hands (we had some practice from looking at engagement rings....), and sure enough, it looked beautiful, tarnish and all! Once the sales lady shined it up, it was really stellar.  I feel like it was a similar story to "The Master's Hands" that speaks of a piece of junk violin that couldn't sell at an auction until an old man picks it up and starts playing it.

Jewelry bagged up, we headed north to White Sands which was originally a national monument (and not a park).  However, in December 2019, it was designated a national park.  I couldn't find a reason for the change, but I think it could be one of two things: because it's the most visited park in New Mexico, maybe it deserved the status OR Donald Trump was reducing monuments and allowing for development at their sites, so possibly giving it "park" status saved it.  It was funny though to see much of the park swag still listing it as a monument, and if I'm being real, it didn't have the size or infrastructure of other parks.  However, Meg had told me how much she loves White Sands, and I had heard repeatedly how beautiful it is AND Hannah needed to cross it off her list, so we went!

As always, tears came to my eyes as we drove past Holloman AFB and saw two F-22s flying overhead. I think it harks back to a time that I can't consciously remember when my dad would take me to air shows at the base, or when we lived in Germany, or Dayton.  It's part of my DNA for sure.

We had been collecting water bottles from hotels the entire ten days, so we were set with water, but as it turned out, there weren't any really long trails.  Everything was just a mile nature trail--one was through the dunes, another was on a boardwalk.   The dunes were unbelievable though--pure white sand that was cool and moist just inches underneath the surface.  And thankfully it wasn't hot so we didn't need to carry water for those short jaunts.

The sun was REALLY bright, and Hannah is notorious for not being able to keep her eyes open in the sun so I basically took every permutation of picture I could ;-)

I thought it would be fun to make a snow angel in the sand, but there is something about my big baby belly and how my pants fit over it, and the direction of my hands that makes this a REALLY weird picture.  I wouldn't even post it on FB! ;-)

We were only there three hours, and Hannah was surprised we had stretched out the experience that long.  But afterwards, we started the five hour drive back to Lubbock and reality.