After my stay I exchange numbers with Matt, thank him endlessly, and promise to keep in touch. He has the same don’t-mention-it, no-big-deal sort of attitude as usual as I point the jeep west and head deeper into New Mexico. When I next stop I find myself at White Sands National Monument. The largest collection of gypsum dunes in the world. With the water table only a few feet below the surface, and gypsums inability to store heat I’m able to hike nearly three miles completely barefoot through hourglass sand. Soft and fine as powder.
I wander over one dune and I’m immediately on another planet. It's fucking Tatooine! White sand tsunamis in every direction, very disorienting. If not for the wooden posts that mark the trails I would be hopelessly lost already. When I reach the top of the next dune the view is tough to beat. Rolling waves of sand spill out to mountains on the horizon while lazy clouds halfheartedly stretch to their breaking point across a sky of dollhouse blue. Clusters of weeds and desert grasses that manage to cling to the shifting sands are the only disturbance in the sea of white. While it may not be a destination in itself, White Sands National monument is worth a stop along the way. At the very least it’s a curious and beautiful landscape in which to stretch your legs after long hours on the road and the kids will love renting a sled from the gift shop and hurling themselves down the dunes like a coat of freshly fallen powder…..well, kids and 30 something drifters who pester them until they're given a turn will love it equally…..
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