After leaving Big Bend, we had an uneventful drive through the rest of Texas to land just over the border in New Mexico. Our home for a couple of days was the Sunland Park Casino, which offered not much in the way of views, but did offer electricity and water, which was fabulous as the temperature got up near 90 and the humidity stayed in the single digits or teens.
The best tortilla chips EVER! Made right in Sunland Park, NM.
We never actually took advantage of the casino, spending our time using their wi-fi instead. So Mike worked, I researched next steps, worked on the blog, and ran errands in nearby El Paso. And then we packed up and moved on to our next area of interest: White Sands National Park.
I have fond memories of visiting White Sands as a kid – being in awe at the seemingly endless giant dunes of pure white sand. I wasn’t sure if reality as an adult would hold up to these memories, but I wanted to find out.
I found a campground on BLM land southwest of White Sands, so we headed there first. It was a slow drive up a narrow, winding road to the Aguirre Springs Campground, but worth the effort. The campground was nestled in Organ Mountains and offered gorgeous views of the surrounding area – rocks interspersed with desert plants and junipers, the mountains above, the valley below, and just a glimpse of the start of White Sands off in the distance. The area was so lovely that we decided to put off White Sands until the next day so we could just relax and enjoy our new home. Naps might have taken place.
The next morning we got an early start to get to the dunes before the heat of the day had really taken hold. Unfortunately, we had not consulted the park’s website and when we got there we found out that the gate would not open until 9 because of missile testing happening at the nearby missile site. So we hung out for a while, drinking coffee and reading while we waited… and found interesting signs.
We headed into the far reaches of the park to hike the Alkali Flat Trail, which was anything but flat. It offered some great views of the dunes and we were the first people on the trail that day, so it was pretty fun to be the first to leave footprints on the dunes. On the way out, we were heading up the soft sides of the dunes, so that was a bit of a workout, but on the way back, we got to kind of throw ourselves down the dunes, allowing the soft sand to cushion us and it was just as much fun as I remembered.
Then back to our campsite for the afternoon. We had noticed some tiny chipmunks scampering around and sunning themselves and found out that they were Organ Mountain chipmunks, found only in that area. An article Mike found said the chipmunks are “docile, don’t mind being handled my humans and even enjoy brief captivity.” We enjoyed watching them from afar, and while we did not try to capture any, we did take a note from the article and offered them peanut butter to try to get them to come a little closer. Mike put bits of peanut butter on nearby rocks and even set out the spoon at the end and we settled in to watch and be entertained. We watched 3-4 work their way closer to us as they were drawn to the peanut butter, identifying what we thought might be a mom and child because of size and were even able to identify a male by some very prominent sexual organs.
As the day moved closer to sunset, we decided to head out for a hike right from our campground. It was a lovely way to end our time in the Organ Mountains.
Mike tries to spy Scarlet from afar 
