White Sands National Monument

Just a short journey south from Three Rivers Petroglyphs, near Alamogordo, we visited White Sands National Monument. It is huge, covering 275 square miles in south-eastern New Mexico.
Photo below courtesy of Wikipedia.

The sand is actually gypsum crystals. Gypsum is rarely found in the form of sand because it is water-soluble. Normally, rain would dissolve it and carry it to the sea. Since the basin in which the Monument lies has no outlet to the sea rain water that dissolves gypsum from the surrounding mountains is trapped, leaving the crystals on the surface when it evaporates or sinks into the ground.

The sand shifts constantly and often covers any vegetation that tries to grow but some like these Yucca survive, for a while at least.

There are other forms of life here as well, including forty-four species of mammals, twenty-six species of reptiles. six species of amphibians and nearly 100 families of insects according to the books. This lone beetle is the only thing we saw ...

... other than our matching puppy Mr. Zax. He seemed to like it a lot. What Terrier wouldn't, with all of that sand to dig in.

There is a large picnic area at the end of the loop road, populated with futuristic-looking aluminum tables. It was too cold for a picnic but they seem to be waiting for warmer weather. Anyway, I liked the serial geometry of the scene.

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