WED., 1/21 - WHERE'S THE OCEAN? by Dot

Today we traveled about an hour east of Las Cruces to the White Sands National Monument, a place we have visited many times through the years. My first trip there was in the spring of 1961 when I visited Las Cruces before we were married. The first year we were married (1961-62) we would often drive over to White Sands after church and have a picnic with Dan’s mother, aunt, and cousin. It was a lot easier to climb the tall dunes in those days! We visited here, also, on a couple of occasions when our children were small, enjoying with them the marvelous white dunes where we could roll down the hill, try to sand surf or write something in giant letters with our feet. We were back again a year ago with our friends Jack and Sheryl – picnicking and frolicking on the dunes as best we could as seniors!

It is a weird feeling in a way to be at White Sands. It looks almost like snow and, in fact, they keep the roads cleared from the shifting sands with snow plows. At the same time it feels like sand, so one is wondering "Where's the ocean?"

Highway 70 travels east through the Organ pass to the vast area that makes up the White Sands Missile Range. Occasionally the road is closed for an hour or more due to missile testing. Fortunately that was not the case today. We purposely arrived around 1 so that we could have our picnic, enjoy the scenery, climb the dunes, and just “chill out” a bit before the scheduled 4:15 sunset nature hike. We were able to do all of that except the final thing. The nature hike was canceled for today! Hopefully we can return for that another day before we leave.

Instead of hiking we visited the New Mexico Space Museum in Alamogordo a city east of White Sands. The museum presented the history of the development of rockets and their use for good and ill. It was a little too focused on the use of rockets in weaponry for my taste, but nevertheless, reminded me of the ingenuity, bravery, and skill of all those who have played a part in this important science. It was also a reminder of the role that NASA and White Sands Missile Range played in the rapid growth of Las Cruces and Alamorgordo. Certainly this museum cannot compete with the Space Museum at the Smithsonian but it is a tribute to the state and an important part of the historical record.

Near the museum was an IMAX theater where we saw Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the moon, a Tom Hanks project. The film takes the viewer to the surface of the moon with Apollo astronauts, using realistic reenactment as well as NASA footage to allow us to see, hear and feel what these space travelers did. It was well done and made us feel like we had been there – sort of!

The sun was setting as we headed back across the mountain along the barren desert. I thought about the remote Trinity site nearby where in 1945 the first atomic bomb was tested. That force of power and destructiveness contrasts so with my experience of the area today as a place of calm, quiet solitude.