White Sands and Las Cruces New Mexico

 We spent a week in Las Cruces relaxing  and enjoying some delicious Mexican food.  We went to Old Town  Mesilla a couple of times just to walk along and enjoy the scenery and little shops.

 One day we took a drive about an hour east of Las Cruces to go to the White Sands National monument.  It is an amazing place of glistening white sand.  There are huge wave-like dunes of gypsum sand on about 275 square miles of desert.  The plants and animals that live here have developed very specialized means of surviving the weather, very little surface water and very mineralized ground water. The lizards are very light or white to blend in with their surroundings.

 These plants are called soap tree yucca.  The plants and animals that live here also have to adapt to a constantly changing landscape.  Rapid growth is how these yucca can keep their leaves above the sand to photosynthesis.   There are many trees that look like they are little bushes but really are tall trees that have been their trunks buried in the sand

 The winds make pretty sculptured dunes and blow the sand across the road so they have to plow it just like snow.  Only a lot warmer.

 I wanted to slide down the hill, but I was too cheap to spend 20.00 on a cheap little plastic disc.  I scouted around the trunk and found a piece of plastic and a chunk of cardboard.  Neither worked but it was fun playing in the sand anyway.

 The day started out very nice but soon started to get windy.  That's a lot of white when it starts getting airborne so we decided to drive to Alamagordo and check out the pistachio places.

You haven't lived until you have seen the worlds largest pistachio!  It was a fun place to see and there were lots of samples which is always great!  I ended up with a pistachio milkshake which we shared on the way home.

That's what all the blowing white sand looked like from a distance.

Another day we took a 20 minute drive to Organ Mountain - Desert Peak National Monument.  The weather in Las Cruces, while we were there, was really below average temperatures.  We decided once the sun was out we would go and it would warm up.  By the time we drove there, the sun was fading fast and the wind was increasing.  We also were at a lot higher elevation.
I could not believe how beautiful it was!  I tried walking on the trail for a while but it seemed to get colder by the minute.  Until - IT STARTED SNOWING!  We decided it was time to leave.

We did enjoy a Saturday stroll through the farmer's market.  We talked to a man who grows pistachios and bought some.  He sun dries them and they are the best we have ever had.  There was lots of nice local produce and amazing crafts.  There were all kinds of entertainers.  One man had a very well trained parrot that knew a lot of tricks.  One thing it could do was meow and bark.    One poor dog that was walking by did not know what was going on listening to the bird barking.
We left for Texas on the 14th.   More on that later!

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