between Albuquerque and Carlsbad

White Sands
see all photos »

June 19- because of the New Mexico heat, we were dying for a swim. Our first stop was Elephant Butte Lake State Park. We drove thru, picked one of the sheltered picnic areas. The place was pretty empty which was nice. We walked down to the beach and took a dip. Didn't realize what kinda hill we were descending til we had to walk back up. In burning sand and that intense heat, that was a little grueling. We picnicked, relaxed a little, then onto...

Truth or Consequences. This was a cool, odd little town. By the time we got there, alot of shops were closed already. We found one cute little place called something like Secondhand Rose. They have interesting knickknacks from all kind of exotic places. They also had used clothes in the back half of the store. I found a nice skirt for only 4bucks. The woman working there was sweet. The town itself is kind of beautiful and unusual. I think I got some cool pics...

Elephant Butte
see all photos »

Then we headed for White Sands. This is the place I was most curious about on our trip. It was so incredibly beautiful. We started out a little worried about the intense heat we were expecting to have there. But we were fortunately running behind schedule. We ended up hitting it at the perfect time for this time of year. It was sunset. About 8pm. The sand felt so good on our bare feet. We walked around awhile. The vast expanse and the immaculate white sand rendered us awe-struck. This was definitely one of my favorite places on the trip.

White Sands
see all photos »

We had camping reservations at a KOA near Carlsbad Caverns. We, I guess read the map wrong. We thought it would just be a few hours from White Sands. We got there around midnight. We were so beat. I think we ended up skipping dinner as well as our plans to watch the bats at sunrise. But the KOA was pretty empty in the tent camping area. We still went to the caves and went on a self-guided tour through one of them. It was fascinating as well. I would love to return and watch the bats at sunrise another time and maybe see the other cave. Right after the cave tour, we took off for the roughest leg of our trip- getting thru all of Texas and into our home!