March 22-23, 2016

Day 1
Driving from SATX to Las Cruces was such a walk in the park! 8.5 hours primarily on I-10W!
Because of switching over to Mountain Time, we arrived at our AirBnb in Las Cruces by 2:15pm.

Corey and I didn’t really have much planned for NM besides going to White Sands National Monument. The plan was to just chill for the remainder of the day, grab some take out and then go star gazing. I was able to take a nap while Corey got some work done at our little desk in the room!

Again, a lot of the restaurants closed by 7, weren’t even opened at all or don’t do take out (which makes no sense to me). We followed Yelp to El Sombrero for authentic Mexican food to-go and then attempted to drive towards Organ Mountains to go star gazing.

It was absolutely gorgeous just driving towards the mountains. I attempted to Google good places to go star gazing in Las Cruces and randomly found a comment from some random dude who advised us to go to Baylor Canyon Road and just park on the side of the road. We followed the recommendation which led us to this tiny road where the “side streets” were dirt driveways to people’s houses. There were no street lights at all. We just parked in front of someone’s house, turned the car to face the road and left the car on just in case we would have to make a run for it.

It was a beautiful night! Not the best for star gazing because it was almost a full moon, but the moonlight illuminated the mountains and the stars were such a pretty sight.

Day 2
This day was extremely slow but just what we needed. Corey worked throughout the morning and I chilled with our host’s dog, Jake, and Duke. We didn’t head to White Sands National Monument until late but it was only a 1 hour scenic drive through the mountains.

White Sands completely exceeded my expectations! It was surreal being on those dunes without anyone else around. Probably the closest I’ll ever feel to being on a different planet. I thought the sand would be hot, but it was actually really cool and moist just beneath the surface. The sun was ridiculously strong especially since it was reflecting off the white sand, but it was also painfully windy that day. I didn’t feel hot or break a sweat at all. Corey’s only complaint was the sand blowing into his eyes and at one point, having sand whipping into us.

Sand sledding is a must! We almost opted to skip out on sledding, which would have been such a stupid mistake. Initially we tried to slide down wimpy looking hills and didn’t get anywhere. Then we found one MASSIVE dune, but we were both too scared to sled down the steepest part in the center. It looked like we would just free fall! But after a few times on the sides, we conquered the steep portion like a boss!!! It was an amazing experience overall. Yes, sand sledding is similar to sledding in the snow, but it was effin’ sand! Fine white powdery sand! In the middle no where! So amazing!

One of the huge factors into why I loved the White Sands is that it’s dog friendly. Duke was a HUGE pain the ass. He constantly tugged to go after our sand sleds and tried biting them as dog toys. He barked when he couldn’t get what he wanted, wouldn’t stay in one spot, ate sand, and covered himself digging holes, etc. Regardless of his antics, it was amazing to see him just being a dog. He’s an over-the-top playful pup and was more excited and intrigued to be in this new environment than us. Seeing his excitement was a great reminder for how surreal and fortunate we are for this entire experience.

We finished off the day with some Pizza Hut and Starbucks, and then Corey decided to start driving to LA that night. Without any rest but with a total of 9 shots of espresso that night, he started the drive to LA. I-10W was suppose to lead us straight to LA, but due to another closure we ended up taking a detour making the total drive time close to 14 hours. At least we learned from a Texas experience to take the detour earlier and not wait til last minute.