Thursday, April 19, 2012

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Hello!

On Thursday, our highlight of the day was definitely the White Sands National Monument, in Alamoguordo, New Mexico. In the middle of the desert lies a bright white gypsum deposit that gets blown into gorgeous sand dunes. I had never seen “sand” so soft and white in all my life. It was the consistency of salt that has been ground with a grinder, almost more powder than sand. We spent a good hour driving around the park and taking pictures, amazed by the complete silence that surrounded us. It could have been eerie, but I was in good company. When the sun was out, the sand was so bright that it hurt your eyes, hence the squinting looks we gave the camera as we tried to capture the height of the dunes behind us. Some were quite big, so much so that you can slide down them. They sell sleds at the visitors' centre! I even saw a little lizard scurrying about, but he was moving too fast for me to be able to take a picture. It was my second lizard sighting, the other being outside an outhouse in Death Valley. Thank goodness I have seen these little reptiles, because we have not seen any other exciting wildlife the whole trip, except for some unidentifiable roadkills. We have seen a few signs warning of possible animal crossings. One for burros (wild donkeys) and others for general wildlife, but all we have seen is deer! Oh, and one coyote. Poor dad spent most of his time in Death Valley looking for those darn burros and never saw a single one.

We have seen and met some interesting creatures, though! Today, we saw our first real cowboy, driving a truck with a trailer full of horses. He was wearing the whole outfit, complete with spurs on his boots. Then we noticed there was a rodeo nearby¸ but it was too late to turn around and we still had quite a bit of driving to do. There was also a gentleman hauling a trailer with what we assumed to be a stuffed buck. Ha! Ha!

We spent the night in Fort Stockton, Texas, and left for Austin in the morning. Our bellies were full of steak and potatoes, so we will had a good night’s rest. The coughing and nose blowing didn't keep us up too much. Catching a cold on vacation is no fun at all. But I’m not complaining. We are having lots of fun, and that’s all that matters.

Until next time,

Cheers!

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Photos

White Sands 11
Adobe structure at the White Sands visitors' centre

White Sands 8
The pics on this blog were all taken with my point and shoot camera. Mike has taken beautiful pictures with his "fancy" camera, but the files are too big to download during the trip. We'll post some to Facebook when we get home.

White Sands 9
Picnic area

White Sands 10
Animal tracks

On route to Austin!
A proud hunter, maybe? I wonder where this beauty will be displayed...

Saloon
An authentic saloon between El Paso and Austin

Honey buns?
These buns were served at a steakhouse in Texas as we waited for our meal. We found they were sweet, but couldn't figure out what it was, until we tasted the butter they had been drizzled with, and realized that it was in fact honey butter. No need to use the extra butter provided, trust me. They were yummy!