A Small Change in Plans

One of the reasons we are in Las Cruces is to visit White Sands National Monument.  My Mom and Dad visited here in the 40's, and I wanted to visit the place that I've seen in their pictures.  We had planned to do that excursion on Friday, 2/8, but the prediction is for high winds for that day, and local scuttlebutt says that the fine, white sand blowing in a wind is no fun, so we decided to do that trip today.

White Sands NM is about 50 miles northeast of Las Cruces on Hwy 70.  On the way to the monument, we saw a sign for the White Sands Missile Range museum, and decided to stop in.  The museum is located on an active military facility, so there is a bit of paperwork required to enter, but it was easily processed by a cordial gentleman at the reception building.  A 5 minute walk puts you at the missile park, where many of the devices that have been tested here are on display.

Adjacent to the outdoor park, there is an indoor display of one of the original V-2 rockets retrieved from Germany after WWII.  I didn't know that more than 250 V-2 rockets in various stages of assembly were recovered, along with pieces and parts of future versions of the rocket.  The war would have had a completely different outcome if this research by the Germans had continued uninterrupted. The allies are fortunate that most of the German scientists chose to defect to the US.  Fermi, Von Braun, Oppenheimer and the boys contributed enormously to the US space program as well as military objectives.

The Test Site Museum has a number of interesting displays, from pictures of early testing to artifacts from the original atomic bomb testing facility. One of the most fascinating is a model of the first atom bomb detonated, code named Trinity.

Amazingly, the bomb is about the size of a 5 gallon pail, about 2 feet around.  Seems so small to have led to a quantum shift in human interaction.

We returned to the main road and continued our trip to the NM.

The visitor center building was built in 1933 by the WPA, and except for the occasional remodel remains much as it was when built.  There is an 8 mile loop road that goes out into the dunes, with many locations to pull off and explore.

The dunes were created by gypsum deposits laid down at the bottom of an inland sea a long, long, long time ago.  The particles are so fine that they have been compared to talcum powder.  The dunes move with the wind, of course, about a 1/4 inch a year.  So the entire dune area is constantly moving north and east.

Pris enjoyed running on the sand!

Until she realized how far away from the truck she was.....

And lest you forget our interest in food, we had dinner at Andele!, a local mexican food hangout.  The clientele is strictly working class, the atmosphere is "early Goodwill", and the food was superb.  We ordered a taco platter that was advertised to make 10 tacos.  There was beef and pork, corn and flour tortillas, all the sauces one could imagine, homemade guacamole, with Cilantro and all the fixin's for $18.

We stuffed ourselves, and still put a third of the food in a box with 3 tortillas for breakfast tomorrow!

If the weather co-operates, we'll go into old town Mesilla tomorrow for some shopping and history. See you then!