Day 21 - White Sands, NM sightseeing

Today was all about White Sands, both the National Park and the Army Missile Museum.

About 30 minutes from our hotel, we arrived at the park entrance at 9:15am. On the NPS app we downloaded the Dunes Driving Loop that narrated interesting facts as we drove the 8-mile scenic drive. We learned the park was formed by a perfect series of geologic events. Gypsum sand dunes are very rare, only three exist in the world, and White Sands is the largest of them. 

Starting 280 million years ago, the Permian Sea retreated and left behind deep layers of gypsum. Seventy million years ago a massive plate tectonics event occurred forming the mountains that carried the gypsum up high. Then, 20-30 million years ago those plates and mountains were pulled apart. Water from melting glaciers in the last Ice Age dissolved the minerals and returned it to the basin.

We stopped for the one mile Dune Life Nature Trail hike. Two unique ecosystems are here, the dunes and the desert scrub. 

 

Over 60 species of moths are here that are found nowhere else. They rely on the yucca plant and the plant relies on the moths to carry the pollen.

A permanent resident is the Kit Fox, only 4 pounds. It burrows deep in the sand hiding until evening when it comes out to hunt for food. The bleached earless lizard and Apache pocket mouse are lighter colored than the same species in the nearby desert - they must adapt to help reflect heat to keep them cooler and more easily blend into the sand. We didn't see any of these, of course.

This cottonwood tree had enough leaves that were softly tinkling in the breeze. The dry leaves are surprisingly firm, not paper thin as they appear. 

After the hike, we drove to the end of the scenic drive and stopped for a picnic around 11:15am. 

This is the view from atop the dunes that were behind our picnic table.

 Part of the drive was on sand, which was a surprise to us, but it was fairly smooth. 

We finished the drive and returned to the visitor center. The historic building in the Pueblo Revival style was built in the 1930s during the Great Depression as part of the WPA.  

We were back on the road at 12:30pm headed towards the missile museum. It required our Real ID driver's licenses and our social security numbers to get a temporary visitor museum pass. Signs said that a criminal background check would occur. We passed squeaky clean.

The museum consists of three sections: the main exhibit building, the V-2 rocket building, and examples of missiles and other weaponry in an outside exhibit. The main building, while small, was packed with information starting from the natural history of White Sands and early New Mexico, to the many battles and wars in New Mexico's formation. The building also included significant information on the many roles the facility has played in the U.S. Government such as the Manhattan Project, nuclear testing, the early development of the U.S. space program, and it's work from the cold-war through today with developing missile and other weapons technology.

Michele especially liked the pristine, decorated water jug found weathering in a sand dune from sometime in years 1,100-1,375!

We liked this hand cranked calculator. It looks complicated.

 

Before the introduction of computers for managing the range logistics, this board was used to coordinate the various missions/tests conducted on the range.

A 1/4 model of the "gadget" used in the Trinity test and the plutonium compression bomb used in "Fat Man" and dropped on Nagasaki.

An example of one of the shoulder fired missile (a Stinger) that was tested during development at the White Sands Missile Range.

This is the debris riddled propeller from a B-17 drone that was shot down by a ground launched missile at the White Sands Missile Range. This was the first aircraft to be shot down by a missile.

The control console for test missions used at the Stallion Range Camp Rang Control Facility during the 1970s and 1980s.

This V2 rocket was painstakingly restored by a company in Kentucky that said upon analysis, it was the best intact V2 example in the U.S. 

The wind picked up dramatically while we walked around the outside exhibits looking at the military equipment and weaponry. 

The casement of the "Fat Man" plutonium bomb.

A 155mm howitzer.

A Patriot missile battery. This system was developed and designed using the White Sands Missile Range during the 70's. It was first deployed in the 90's during the Iraq war. The system (with modern updates) is still in use today.

We finished at the museum just before 4pm when they close and drove the 45 minutes back to the hotel until we were ready for dinner. At 5:30pm we drove 5 or so minutes into downtown and got dinner at Rizos Mexican restaurant. We shared chips, salsa, a delicious chicken chimichanga and salad. During dinner, Rob "spilled the beans" and told Michele that he purposely entered a wrong number or two in his social security number at the security check in at White Sands, just to see how thorough they really are! Clearly it wasn't that thorough or they didn't consider us a threat as we had to walk to the museum and couldn't get very far on the installation by foot.

Today is most likely the last warm day we'll have, as it reached almost 68 degrees while we were at the White Sands Missile Range Museum today. Tomorrow we depart for Santa Fe, hopefully with space alien sightings along the way.