Las Cruces, New Mexico

White's City near Carlsbad Canyon. This is the New Mexico style of cabins for rent. A duplex at that!

The post office at White's City

They had this eight foot brown bear on the porch. Notice the chain around his ankle. As though someone might run off with him!!

The also had these weird looking aliens hanging around. This must be a New Mexico desert thing?

 

 

We left the Carlsbad area on Thursday and drove over the Sacramento Mountains. In a matter of several hours we saw such a diversity in the scenery we were amazed. We started in desert country at Brantley Lake State Park. We drove north to Artesia then west into the Sacramento Mountains. At Wimsatt we were in the pines with golden fields of grass and it reminded us of Colorado in the foothills. Then a little further up we started seeing traces of snow. By the time we got to the summit near Cloudcroft there was snow everywhere and the temperature dropped from forty five to 28 degrees. There was a ski resort at the top of the mountain and they had over a foot of snow and drifts even higher. After the summit we came to a lookout point facing west and could see white in the distance. We couldn't tell if it was snow or if we were above the clouds. After driving down we found ourselves in White Sands New Mexico and the white turned out to be sand dunes of glistening gypsum. We drove into White Sands National Monument and took a drive into the dunes and had our lunch. What an awesome place! Afterwards we drove to Las Cruces and set up camp at Leasburg Dam State Park back in the desert. We had come full circle and still couldn't believe the scenery of the day.

Driving west into the mountains the desert scenery gave way to pines and meadows

We saw several groups of mule deer grazing in the meadows

Higher up we started getting snow. At Cloudcroft at the summit there was a ski resort.

Over the summit and on the way down we came to Lincoln National Forest. The view was incredible. We couldn't figure out what the white was in the desert in the distance.

We found ourselves in White Sands National Monument. This wasn't snow, but sure looked like it!

Gypsum sand accumulated from the minerals washed down from the mountains, crystallized, and blown by the wind into fine particles.

We drove eight miles into the dune fields and stopped for lunch.

These dunes cover 275 square miles!

A view from our camp in Mesilla near Las Cruces. Back at desert level and nice and warm.