CANMT Trip: Rockhound and White Sands

We woke up when we heard a vehicle at our campsite. I think it was around 7am. It was the ranger checking to see if everyone had paid. In our case he was returning our entrance fee because apparently it was included in the reservation fee I paid for camping. How wonderfully honest! It also made us feel pretty silly for wasting all that time to find a $5 bill the previous day. Since we had gone to bed early the night before we got up and started our day. It was still windy and a little chilly. We ate breakfast and were packed up and ready to leave a little after 9:30. We thought we'd stop by the visitor's center on our way out. We went there and saw it wouldn't open until 10:00. Oh well. But as we started to drive away, the same ranger asked if he could help us. We said no, and that we were on our way out and thought we'd check out the center.  He invited us to come on in and look around. There wasn't much to the visitor's center, but the ranger was interesting to talk to. He convinced us to go on a trail because we would find rocks.
 This brings me back to my planning. I originally thought this place sounded interesting because it's one place where you can take home the rocks you find. Melodie loves picking up rocks, so this sounded like a good idea. As I researched it more, it sounded like a place for serious rockhounds with tools and time to collect things like geodes. But, as the planning went on, the location still fit as a good place to stop for the night.
 The ranger told us that there are rocks you don't need to chisel and that would be on the ground along the trail. He gave us examples of what to look for and off we went.

Melodie was thrilled to be allowed to pick up rocks. We didn't stay on the trail very long because of the wind and because we had a big day planned. We tried our best to find more than just regular rocks. We took our rocks to the visitor's center and learned we found a few kinds of jasper and a banded rhyolite (among a few ordinary rocks).

As we drove back to the highway we were surprised by the cows next to the road. They weren't fenced in and there were cow crossing caution signs. We drove slowly hoping a cow wouldn't be on the road.

Our next stop was White Sands National Monument. As we approached, Melodie thought it was snow. We went to the Visitor's Center first where we stamped our National Parks Passports (we got these on our first road trip years ago), got Melodie a Jr. Ranger packet and learned all about the White Sands.

 The Jr. Ranger programs turned out to be a favorite of Melodie's on this trip. We did one at each National Park and Monument we went to. She would complete activities, then say a pledge and then earn a badge or patch (or sometimes both).

Melodie working on her Jr. Ranger booklet at the visitor's center

 What White Sands also had was a Jr. Ranger backpack you could borrow. It had binoculars, a compass, and all kinds of fun stuff.

After exploring the visitor's center and buying a sled, we entered White Sands. This was our first use of America the Beautiful National Parks Pass.  Yay! It's a 16 mile roundtrip drive with stops along the way. We ate our lunch while we drove looking around looking for a spot to sled. It was tough climbing up the sand dunes. Melodie and Rocky went first to sled together. They were slow going down and stopped halfway. Rocky got off the sled and Melodie zoomed down the rest of the way.

Rocky and I each tried a few more times, but even with the was on the sled we just didn't go very fast. Melodie was having a blast. Eventually Rocky and I didn't want to climb anymore so Melodie did it on her own.

 Then we thought we should find her a slightly smaller dune. She played in the sand and did some more sledding. The White Sands Missle Range is near by and we heard a lound BOOM! We couldn't figure out if it was from the missle range or thunder (dark clouds were rolling in). It was very loud. We learned later that it was from the missle range. Finally the climbing was too much for her and we drove to a trail.

Sand Angel

A smaller dune

Look how deep the sand was!

Sledding sideways

Sledding backwards

Melodie enjoyed using the items in her backpack along the trail. She didn't quite know how to use the compass, even though we tried to explain it to her. She still thought she was leading the way even though we were actually following the arrows on the trail.

We chose the Dune Life Nature Trail because it was suppose to be the best chance of seeing animals and tracks. We didn't see any. I think it was too windy. It was a one mile hike with two steep climbs and Melodie did really well. Even with the sand pelting against us.

 We went back to the visitor's center where we sold back our sled (I'm not sure why they don't just call it renting) and Melodie turned in her Jr. Ranger booklet. She took the pledge and earned her first badge of the trip.