White Sands, New Mexico

White Sands, New Mexico, was a truly unique and beautiful experience. I've never experienced anything like it before!

The dunes became a national monument in 1934, and are also located close to a military testing area. In fact, the morning we arrived we had to wait to enter the monument because there was a missile test in progress!

The gorgeous white sand is made out of gypsum, and absolutely frigid on our bare feet. We lasted about ten minutes before running for our thick wool camping socks. (Which you can see in some of our photos)

It was a great place for a photo shoot. However, I think my favorite thing was dune surfing. We were lucking enough to borrow a couple of boards from some friends we stayed with the night before, but they are also available for rent at the gift shop! I was never able to stand up and ride a dune all the way down - I wiped out every single time, but even sitting and sliding was super fun!

Pro-dune surfer right here 

Probably the most memorable thing on this day, other than the beautiful, picturesque view of White Sands, was losing two full tubs of fresh guacamole in the car.

The previous night, we stayed with a wonderful family who fed us the best food we'd eaten all week on our road trip (sans the delicious meal in Sedona, and my bacon cheese fries from Wendy's near the Grand Canyon). They also gifted us with guac and chips for our long drive home. However, soon after leaving the park, when I inquired about where the guacamole was at, no one could seem to find it. How four people lose something as important as guacamole in a small, compact car is a question I can't really answer. Chaos ensued. In about two minutes we flipped the car up side down, making a complete mess. There was some yelling, some whining, and finally, Jessica asked a very simple question. "Cambria, don't tell me, are you sitting on the guacamole?"

 She was.

Luckily the guacamole was okay and the tension over losing the guac quickly subsided as we were able to devour the creamy avocado dip. Amazingly, it didn't spill all over the car, or all over Cambria!

White Sands was a fun, and less physically intensive way to end our epic spring break road trip.


While I wouldn't reccommend making a trip to White Sands all on its own, if you just happen to be passing through the area, it's certainly worth checking out!