White Sands National Monument

(Yes, I actually took this picture)

The great thing about traveling with a fellow solo traveler is that you each journey in your own way, and then meet up at a specified destination.  There is none of that following behind one another, or being the leader, or going too fast or going too slow.  You just travel the way you normally do.  I figured this out after my second stop on the way to White Sands National Monument when I realized there was no other way to get there than the method that suited me best, which was making several stops.

I was traveling with Jennifer and even though I left before her, I ended up at White Sands after her, but only by about 5 minutes.  White Sands is just that, white sands.  But it is also eerie, powerful, wonderful and just plain strange.  This is undulating sand.  The history of this gypsum is that it originally was deposited at the bottom of a shallow sea, turned into stone, rose into a giant dome when the Rocky Mountains formed, and then collapsed and created a basin.  Of course it took millions of years to do this, but the sand is still moving, only now it moves with the wind's direction.  It was extremely hot walking across those sands and yet a mere inch below the surface it is quite cool.

Taking a break at the Burrow

Surrounding the White Sands on all sides is a missile range.  So on our way out of this strange land a shattering BOOM shook the earth, the animals, the trees and Jennifer and I.  Not once, but twice.  Cannot even imagine what the vibration of that sound does to the land.

Jennifer connecting with the Sand

Jennifer the photographer

Walking the endless Sands