Day 7 : Monday 25th August (Las Cruces - White Sands National Monument)

Day 7 Monday 25th August

Started the day with yet another excellent breakfast provided by Anita at Dream Catcher Inn and decided on a short drive around the corner to the Space Murals Museum on Baylor Canyon Drive. This is a really surprising and delightful collection of memorabilia dealing with all space related missions (all nations).  Entry is free (cannot get better than that!) and this museum relies on donations of exhibit items (and a collection box) and money received from the extensive gift shop.

Space Murals Museum started by the owner as a way to decorate his water tank,moved on a huge collection of Space related memorabilia.

Anyone with any interest in the various space programs could easily spend a day or even two there, unfortunately we only had a couple of hours.

We then went about 60 miles up I70 to the White Sands National Memorial, a large area of gypsum sand dunes.  It is,  in fact the largest by quite a margin, located in the Tularosa Basin. The park covers about 275 square miles. Parts of the park are protected due to the sensitive nature of the environment, but the majority is available for both research and "public play".  The winds swee the dunes clean of all traces of visitors virtually each day.  Daily visitors get the feel of a pristine environment. The dunes themselves are constantly moving although as they reach the Eastern boundary then just mysteriously stop, why this happens remains the question...... In spite of the temperature and almost complete lack of surface water a surprising variety of plants and animals make their home in the gypsum dunes.  A fabulosu place to visit.

White sand National Memorial

One of the hardy residents - small birds are part of the critical inhabitants

Maritta - toboganing down the dune side

Dale -  like on snow without the cold and wet

After the fun of the White Sands Memorial we then travelled a further 30 miles and visited the Space Museum in Alamogordo. This is a much more formal more traditional museum housing a large selection of material mainly related to the Apollo missions although there is information on most NASA and Russian space missions along with historical data concerning the journey so far starting with Galileo and Isaac Newton.  Really well set up for children.  A number of exhibits had been temporarily removed and there is considerable renovations going on at the moment.

There is also and IMAX theatre where we saw a film on the research into Tornado’s, fascinating and scary for those who live there.

We then went back to the White Sands National Memorial for their sunset Ranger guided walk. This gave us an insight into the life of the plants and animals in the dune environment.

View from near Alamogorgo into the Valley

Soap Tree Yucca pokes its head above the moving dune - a brilliant adaptaion.

Sunset over the Dune field and neary mountains - awesome experience.