Day 11, March 11th: Aliens and White Sands National Park

We had a quiet night at the Chosa Campground.

Sunrise at Chosa Campground

We awoke to a spectacular sunrise.

Since it is so flat, you have both great Sunsets and Sunrises.

After breakfast we set out for Roswell, where in 1947 there was an incident......

Our first stop was at the Visitor Center, it is kind of funny. 

Roswell Museum

Frankly, I used to Poopoo the whole thing, but after visiting the Roswell museum, my head is spinning...they make a very compelling argument that there was a huge government coverup?

Aliens?

I truly hope that we are not alone..and there are aliens. 

We enjoyed Roswell more than we thought we would. The personal accounts of people there at that time are hard to discount...it seems we were visited by Aliens. We Believe 😊

Atlas Missile Display in Roswell

In the museum they also have a display on the Atlas Missile complex that was deployed in Roswell in the early 1960's. The configuration was identical to what was deployed around Plattsburg Air Force Base, 12 silos in a circle. In 2017, brother Don arranged a tour of one of these silos in Lewis, NY and I was able to tag along, it was fascinating. 

After Roswell and a quick lunch (Subway), we set off for White Sands National Park, it is about 150 miles southwest of Roswell.  

As we approached from the east we passed over 7500ft in elevation, then dropped about 4000ft to the White Sands basin. It looks like it snowed in the valley. We took pictures but they just don't do it justice. 

We had booked a campsite at the Oliver Lee Memorial State Campground, 25 miles from the White Sands NP and we debated going straight to the campground or the NP.

We elected to at least go to the Visitor Center before going to camp. Adjacent to White Sands NP is the Holloman Air Force Base. As we were getting near the NP two F16s in bound for landing crossed in front of us. The first one was in the distance, the second directly over us...it was very cool.

My dash cam caught a bit of the second as he passed over us....

White Sands National Park

We arrived at the Visitor Center about 16:00.

We decided to do a quick drive of the loop just to check it out, it was a bit over whelming.  They actually have to plow the roads through the dunes, very cool. 

Driving in White Sands NP

We planned a short drive through but it was so beautiful, we could not leave. 

We parked the Serenity and did some hiking on the dunes and decided to hang around for the Sunset tour that goes off at 18:00. 

The park is expansive and you can get lost if you lose site of man made objects. In our case the sun was out so it was unlikely we would loose our way😊

Gypsum Sand

The sand is as fine as we have ever seen, even in the bright sun, it is cool to your feet. The sand is made of 98% pure gypsum (unlike silica sand). Gypsum sand is soft, cool to the touch, and dissolves in water. 

White Sands NP

It did not take long to get pretty warm with the bright sun reflecting off the sand. 

Gathering for the Sunset Tour

We had dinner in the Serenity just before the Sunset Tour, which seemed to gather right where we parked...too funny. 

The tour was about 1/2 a mile and lasted about an hour, it was very informative. 

Sunset at White Sands NP

The tour ended with a pretty spectacular sunset. 

We enjoyed our visit at White Sands and plan to return on Thursday. 

We set out for The Oliver Lee Memorial State Park and it was getting dark. We don't like to drive our RV at night, since we have bikes on the front, but it was only 25 miles to the campground. 

Oliver Lee Memorial State Campground

We arrived at the campground in the dark, it overlooks the town, even in the dark it looks like a nice place. 

We will go back to White Sands on Thursday and then continue west.