Today we headed further into New Mexico to Alamogordo. Along the way
we drove through White Sands Missile Range, the place where the first
nuclear bomb was detonated. As it is still an active missile range we
had to stop at a check point and being non-US citizens we were told to
pull to the side for a couple of questions and our ‘papers’. All very
exciting, but we still don’t get why US citizens are free from all
suspicion. They were just waved through with no fuss 🙂

Once we were given the all clear we drove on to White Sands National
Monument which is the world’s largest gypsum sand dune field. The
dunes are a perfect white and are lovely and soft. If you take your
sunglasses off it is amazing how bright it is and as the photo below
shows, cameras struggle and make it look quite dark.

As we were in the park we could see some storms approaching and the
wind was really whipping the sand up so we drove on to Alamogordo
where as soon as we checked in the heavens opened. The streets flooded
instantly and made getting to dinner a bit of fun, but we made it safe
and sound 🙂