A quick trip to the Land of Enchantment- New Mexico (Aug2011)

Thought I'd post a little here about our recent trip back to New Mexico. It was a short and fast trip as you will see. We drove to Alamogordo, New Mexico where we spent the weekend with my Mom. We were blessed with a couple of afternoon showers. It was so wonderful to smell the fragrance that the desert gives off after a summer shower. If you've never smelt that smell then you've missed a truly good experience. It takes me back to when I would wonder around the desert with my 22 rifle out looking for jack rabbits. It was mostly to just be out wondering verse the hunting of jack rabbits. You could stand in one place and get poured on then walk 20 feet and be perfectly dry. There is a beauty about the desert that unless you've lived and experienced it,  it is hard to describe.

Here are a couple of my shots of the dunes.

My Mom's house is about a 15 minute drive from the entrance to White Sands National Park. So while there we had the chance to spend two evenings enjoying the cool breezes sitting on top of the white sand dunes watching the sun set over the Organ mountains. While Mom and I were relaxing Becky was busy snapping away on the camera.

White Sands is like no place on earth. As the gypsum sand blows up from the heart of the Tularosa Basin. It  is truly one of the world's great natural wonders. The  white sands of New Mexico. It spreads out over  275 square miles of desert creating the world's largest gypsum dune field. I was able to sit and listen to a geologist explain where the white sand comes from. He had been hired by the Army through White Sands Missile Range to survey the entire Tularoa basin. In his report he showed that just south of  the Maiapis lava beds on the north end of the basin is where the gypsum sand comes from. The wind blows the top soil off of a bed of pure gypsum. Then the gypsum is blown south and over time created the wonderful dunes we have today.


We also were able to go over to Ruidoso.

Then a short stop Albuquerque to visit with our son Chad who is finishing up his masters in Architecture at the University of New Mexico. We were also blessed to be able to spend a few hours with some close friends over Blue Corn Enciladas with Green Chile. We had to stop by and get some freshly roasted Green Chile shipped back to us in Mississippi and boy is it good.

Then off to Denver to spend some time with our son Shane and daughter in law Lauren. They were blessed to be able to purchase a new house last December and this would be our first time to see it.

While we were there we got a chance to enjoy the Denver Butterfly Pavilion. Boy did we take some pictures there. Here are a few. Hope you enjoy the beauty.

We also were able to take in a Rockies game. They were playing the Dodgers but couldn't pull it out and lost the game. But a fun night with wonderful cool Denver rocky mountain temperatures.

The fun couldn't last forever so we saddled up and rode home spending the night in Tulsa with Becky's sister Susan's family. Then setting out for the final stretch home. Over 3000 miles on the car, a thousand photos in the tin and a ton of priceless memories. I'd say that was a really fun trip.