New Mexico to Arizona

I am so sorry! I completely forgot to write about our trip from New Mexico to Arizona! We also drive this in 2021. I have had this written for a while it just got put aside until now.

This part of our journey was short. My husband had a meeting for work to attend to on his phone so the kids and I waited at the Campground for an hour while he went ahead of us.

I was at just above a quarter tank of gas when we left. No gas station around the Campground for me to fill up before we left. Oh well! There will be one surely on the route we are taking.

Lo and behold there were no gas stations at all! We stopped at a little petting zoo about an hour after we left the Campground hung out and fed the animals, bought some jam and honey, and a couple of mini pies to share. By this time I had around 25 (It may have been more, my memory on the amount is a bit foggy) miles left to empty. I was a bit worried that the gas would run out before we made it to the station. The gentleman at the register said that there would be a gas station soon.

Luckily we made it to the gas station just before we ran out. If there is anything to take from this it is to fill up/take a route with a gas station. The gas stations are far from each other in New Mexico and if driving in the dark it is hard to see where to turn in.

After the petting zoo, we made it to white sands and walked around the perimeter of the visitor’s center. We were in luck and received a sled for free from another visitor, and bought a used sled, and a brand new one.

Then we went to the white sands KOA to pick up dad and made a little detour to the world’s largest pistachio! This I did not want to do (I thought it was just going to be a giant pistachio out in the middle of nowhere)! But we ended up going and it was way better than expected it was on the outskirts of town and right in front of a vineyard/pistachio farm! They even had a store where you can buy from a ginormous selection of pistachios.

They sell wine, jams/jelly, popcorn, little souvenirs, and a whole mess of things. I zeroed in on all those pistachios and bought way too many. If you end up going and you are a pistachio lover like my kids and me, you might want to bring a friend for that voice of reason, otherwise, you are going to spend way more than you want!

After visiting the world’s largest pistachio we went back to the white sands and did some sand sledding! The sand was so loose it was hard to slide down and we had to keep finding more compacted spots. If you have ever made snow angels you would love making sand angels and rolling around in the sand is just as much fun. Instead of being wet and cold though it is sticky and dirty the girls had it stuck everywhere on their bodies. It was an amazing experience with sand as white as snow.

Here is a link for some basic information! https://www.nps.gov/whsa/planyourvisit/basicinfo.htm

Fun fact gypsum is a clear substance that makes the sand at white sands appear white. The gypsum is constantly rubbing up/hitting each other and the combination of the sun makes the sand look white to the eye. Below is a link if you would like to learn more!

https://www.lascrucescvb.org/5-cool-facts-about-white-sands-national-monument/

Before the white sands became the white sands it was a basin filled with grass lands and water.. it was home to the ice age animals! Here is a link explaining how the white sands came to be.

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/39289/white-sands-national-monument#:~:text=The%20sands%20of%20White%20Sands,behind%20when%20water%20bodies%20evaporate.&text=Over%20many%20years%2C%20gypsum%20crystals,broke%20down%20into%20tiny%20grains.

The provided links is in case you want to learn more about how the whites sands came to be. I am sorry I did not do a report! For me I need to take a lot of time and research and drafts for something so interesting! Plus I do not want to misinform.