Carlsbad, NM to Deming, NM

2/1/09 From Carlsbad, NM to Deming, NM

Weather - Clear and around 55

Today we had to make a decision on the route to take to get to Las Cruces and pick up I10. The choice was to continue south from Carsbad and make a stop at the Guadalupe Mountains National Park as we cross into Texas or to head north through Artesia and the west to Alamogordo and then south and visit White Sands National Monument. We elected to go through Alamogordo and White Sands.

It was a steady climb from Artesia to Alamogordo peaking at around 7,500 ft as I recall. It was a great 2 lane highway all the way. Again we saw many oil wells pumping and more being drilled. The interesting signs along the road warned of "rolls" in the highway and descents of 6 percent. Our curiosity about the "rolls" heightened but in the end decided it must have meant sharp turns.

When we got to the top and began the descent from Alamogordo we could see the White Sands far off in the distance, probably 60 miles away. The descent was steep and curvy with many warnings for trucks not to exceed 45 miles per hour on the way down. They conveniently had a couple of runaway ramps strategetically placed.

Driving close to the town of White Sands there were many signs of the space age activities that continue to occur there. A number of musuems beckoned but we passed them by and went to the National Park headquarters. They have a nice headquarters building and show a film on the forming of the sand dunes. As explained there is a technical definition of sand having grains of a certain size but it is not dependent on material. The sand there is not silica but gypsum. Yeah, the same stuff that is used to make drywall and plaster of paris. There is another expanation of how the gypsum comes to be there but won't go into that.

After watching the movie we got out our National Park pass and took the 9 mile drive through the dunes. It was lunch time so we parked the fifth wheel near one of the picnic shelters, raided the refrigerator and had lunch at the table under the shelter.

One difference between White Sands sand and silica sand is that silica sand can be brushed off as can gypsum when it's dry but if gypsum gets wet it sticks. Wet gypsum is like drywall compound when wet and sticks to whatever it hits. I avoided the wet spots in the road on the way out. The jack stands on the trailer looked a little like stalactites when we left there.

From White Sands we traveled on over to Deming, NM on I10 where we parked for the night. Very interesting country out here.