We left Tucson at a reasonable hour and drove. And drove and drove and drove. We stopped for gas and bathrooms once or twice….

The drive was beautiful. It seemed like every time we went through or over a mountain range, another world pop up on the horizon. It was that way until we got to where we were going…

But I digress. We stopped for lunch in Las Cruces, NM, and a place called Spanish Kitchen. It was good. Cheap, good Mexican food. 

We continued on our way to where we thought we could camp dispersed for tonight and tomorrow night… And we realized we were going right past White Sands NP. The idea was to go there tomorrow anyway, but since it was literally on the way, we decided to stop for a bit today and get our bearings. 

It was cool! We did two mini hikes, which were a nice introduction to the area. The sand is gypsum. It’s really white and super soft. It felt SO good on my feet! 

We didn’t spend a bunch of time there, we still had a campsite to find… Half an hour later, we pulled into the area where dispersed camping is allowed. We didn’t waste too much time looking for a spot, we pretty much grabbed the first one that would work and pitched camp. 

Dinner was crack (Dot’s) pretzels (the cinnamon and sugar ones), and then we decided to bust out the bottle of wine we’d bought at Caduceus Cellars in Jerome. Mmmmmm!

We drank our wine as we watched the sun go down. Boy was it pretty!

After the sun went down, we ended up hanging out in the car because it’s freaking cold outside and the sun went down at 5:07 and that’s just too long to be in the tent.

We tried to watch a movie but the iPad messed up, so we read books in the car for a bit before going in the tent for the night.

I was surprisingly warm in my nice cozy sleeping bag that night, it was so nice! I slept so well I almost missed sunrise. It was already pretty light out when I emerged from deep inside my bag…

We had a lovely lazy morning at camp, reading books and generally chilling out. I wanted to get to the park a but later today for prettier light, but I’m a super impatient person and by 11:00 I was super antsy and wanted to move. 

We left a little before noon, not SO bad… Took a lap through town and didn’t find much, except for every single fast food place imaginable. And two McDonald’s. 

We got to the park and headed out to the far dunes. We walked for quite a while out there. The further out we got, the cooler the dunes, of course. Less footprint, less people. 

These dunes are way different from the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado. The sand is way softer and finer, and it’s white. The dunes aren’t nearly as tall, either. Still super pretty though. 

Eventually we made our way back to the car and finished driving the loop around. We stopped at a picnic table and had a snack, then went to the backcountry camping area and wandered the dunes some more. 

We headed back to camp in time for sunset and dinner, which was quesadillas. Again. 

Ahhh, dispersed camping. It’s always an interesting experience, the people that are out there. There was a guy screaming about licking his ass for a bit, which was entertaining, and eventually he switched to just yelling “you fucking turd!” which just got old after a bit. Thankfully he shut up and we had a peaceful evening around the LavaBox before bed. 

The next morning, I woke up stupid early. I really had to pee, so I gave up and got out of the tent… It was really weird outside. It was cloudy, but the kind of clouds that should burn off before too long… Well, they didn’t. I made some coffee, and proceeded to freeze my ass off while Matt snored in the tent…

Eventually he got up, had some coffee of his own, and we broke down camp. We scarfed some bagels for breakfast and were on our way. SantaFe bound!

Here’s the video: