Our trip to White Sands in August

Last August we went to White Sands, NM on a camping trip with my sister Katie and her hubby Gordon + kids, and Gordon's sister Betty and her family. I didn't realize that I had never written about it until I saw that the pictures from it were still stuck on our other camera. I don't actually have pictures from our time we spent actually in White Sands because we were warned not to bring our camera to the dunes because the sand is really fine and can ruin electronics when it blows. So we took some pictures there with a disposable camera that I never got developed.
Here is Jake, Gordon and Jaxon at the look out point up in the mountains. Though we played at White Sands we camped in the mountains because there was no camping available near White Sands. You can see the sand dunes over Jake's left shoulder off in the distance.

Left to Right: My nieces Eve and Lily, then Lyla and Mckayla, and Jake and Jaxon.

We also went to a solar observatory while we were there. We walked around to the different giant telescopes that they use to observe the sun. It was very high in the mountains and was a beautiful drive.

This is my sister Katie with most of the little girls. They had so much fun together. We did have a lot of fun playing on the dunes the one day we went, but the kids were pretty content to run around the campsite and play together.

On our drive through New Mexico we went through a terrible lightening storm. It was pretty freaky, but also very cool. After many many attempts I was able to catch a shot of some lightening through the windshield. I am pretty proud of that. We actually stayed in a hotel the first night because we didn't get there until after dark and it was pouring down rain. We didn't want to set up camping stuff in that weather. It also poured down rain the second night and I think that every single tent leaked. So much for rainflies!!!

White sands was really cool. It was different from other sand dunes I have been to because, not only are they white, but it is really fine sand so it has a much different texture. Only a few feet below the surface it hardens into a plaster-type feel that is so hard that they just plowed through to it to make roads and parking lots. They just use snow plows to clear the sand down to the plastery-type surface. No other sand dunes can do that. You always have to park on the edge and hike in to it. The most fun thing to do at the dunes is to go sledding. We got sleds at the visitor's center and went sledding in the summer. It was a blast, and not nearly as cold! After dark though, the wind started to blow and the sand blew so hard it felt like it would cut through the skin to the bone.

We had so much fun on that trip, and hopefully I will get those pictures off of the disposable camera soon so that y'all can see what the dune look like!