Today we are driving a short hour
and a half up into Alamogordo New Mexico. I have a state sticker
book and when I spend a night in the RV in a new state, I peel off
the sticker of that state and paste it in. Tonight will be a new
state slept in. I'm such a kid.
The drive is pretty uneventful
and we end up in the RoadRunner KOA RV Park. The Rvs are about two
picnic table lengths away from each other. My kind of place – not.
As I walk around the RV, hooking everything up I notice something
odd. Notice anything missing?
Evidently the cover to my water
heater fell off somewhere down the road. Bummer. As I'm standing
there contemplating my options, the dog from next door comes tearing
over. He is in attack mode and heads straight for Miko. He tries to
grab her in the shoulder, she slides around me she is on leash) and I
haul off and land a solid kick on this monster dog (monster in
demeanor, not size). If I wasn't so ticked off, it would have been
funny – the look on his face like What? The owners grabbed him and
took him back to their place. Miko was quite traumatized – there
was no skin broken, but she sat there in the RV with her tail between
her legs. She wouldn't even take a treat. Thankfully this only
lasted for a little bit and then she was back to herself.
After we got it back together, I
found a place that had a hot water cover but it was painted white.
The guy said he would paint it black for me and I could pick it up
the next day. All for $60.
The reason we are in Alamogordo
is because it is a few miles down the road from White Sands National
Monument – the largest gypsum field in the world. Gypsum looks
like sand, so hence the name. We headed over there late afternoon.
We wanted to drive around and see the sands and we also wanted to go
sliding. We stopped at the Visitor's Center and got ourselves a
couple of flying saucers and headed out to the dunes. Miko was with
us – she could come play in the sand with us.
I think Miko thought she was up
north. When we got out of the car to go play in the dunes, I think
she thought she was seeing a whole big pile of snow. She bounded
across the dunes, immediately sticking her nose in the sand just like
she does in the snow. She came up with sand all over her nose,
sneezing to beat the dickens.
We climbed a dune - interesting
is that on one side of the dunes it is a fairly gentle slope and on
the other side of the dunes, it looks straight down. We tried
sledding on the gentle side and really couldn't get going to much
even though I had waxed the hell out of the bottom side of the flying
saucers. Finally, we decided to try the straight down side. Or
rather, Lou decided to try that side. She went flying down and
believe it or not, she didn't die. So, she talked me into trying it.
Remember, I am really scared of heights, this was beyond scary for
me. I shoved off and flew down the steep side. It was scary the
whole way down, but I didn't crash, I didn't burn, I was pretty proud
of myself for doing this. Thank you Lou for pushing me outside of my
boundaries.
It was time for the twilight walk
through the dunes. About an hour before sunset, a ranger does a
nature walk through the dunes, explaining how the dunes came to be,
what the wildlife is and how it all comes together. We had Carol as
our volunteer ranger guide and she was extremely knowledgeable and
also very funny as we walked through the dunes. She finishes up the
tour just at that magical sunset hour when the light comes across the
desert in a softer, more vibrant way. BTW, Miko was wonderful on the
Twilight tour, she sat and listened attentively to everything Ranger
Carol had to say.
**Thanks to Pete Lee for the cool post card
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