The "Sandy" National Parks

White Sands National Park (NM)

On Easter Sunday, my sister Cindy & I ventured northeast of Las Cruces to White Sands National Park.  It was a beautiful sunny day, with lots of families together for the holiday.  It was cool to see folks tailgating and enjoying the snow white dunes.  The young & old were playing in the sand, many riding large plastic saucers typically seen on snow hills in the winter.  Encompassing more than 275 square miles, this is the largest gypsum dunefield in the world.  Cindy said that usually guests could enjoy a hike on the boardwalks, but during our visit, they were all covered with deep drifts from the blowing winds.  Even portions of the park road was covered by the white sands.  Truly this area looked like a snowy oasis in the Chihuahuan Desert.  I did get out to experience the sand . . . and couldn't believe how much of it got into my sneakers! It was so very fine, seemingly getting in everywhere.  I'm just glad I wasn't needing to wash it out of my britches when we got back to her place!

White Sands National Park (NM)

A little over two weeks later, I visited the other well known "sandy" national park.  The Great Sand Dunes National Park is located in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of Colorado pretty much out in the middle of nowhere.  One of the newer U.S. National Parks (since 2004), I thoroughly enjoyed visiting even if I wasn't able to do much in the way of hiking the sand creek flows at the foot of the sand dune field.  The sand was not very compact and shifted quite a bit beneath my feet.  Such walking can create some stress on my arthritic knees, so I only ventured a couple hundred yards to the water's edge to take a few photos.

Being in the high altitude mountains, much of the campground had snow which was melting and creating a sandy wet mess in some sites.  As I drove through the two camp loops, I thought how happy I was to not be camping there that evening.  The sunny mid afternoon was windy and chilly; so much so I had to find my hoodie to stay warm.  I started to have lunch outside at one of the picnic areas, but quickly retreated back inside my SUV to get out of what became a bit of sand-blasting thanks to the winds.

All in all, I enjoyed experiencing this wonderful national park and think that one day, I would enjoy another visit to including camping.  Oh yeah . . . they also have bears!  But I didn't see any during my couple of hours there.

Great Sand Dunes National Park (CO)