Good evening Cowboys,
What a long day we had today!
We started off this morning exactly where we left yestarday, in Alamogordo, NM.
White Sands National Monument has been in my radar of places to go visit for a long time, and finally today I had the chance to see it in all its majestic beauty. I almost couldn't wait to check out of the hotel to drive the 16 miles that separate White Sands Boulevard from Hwy 70 where the National Monument is.
Before getting there though, I wanted to call the Ranger Station at the Visitor Information Center to see if there was any military activity planned off Hollman Air Force Base.
This is something you might want to think about to avoid getting stuck, as they do close Hwy 70 with a "twice a week" sort of routine for weapons and aircraft testings.
This National Monument has a magical feeling to it at sunset and at night, when you can see the moon reflecting on its white sand dunes; but even during the day, visitors to White Sands National Monument are up for a great show.
The park (I hate to call it a monument! LOL) wasn't that crowded, which certainly made it for a better experience. Other than a few families with kids trying to "sandboard" from the top of the dunes, we were pretty much the only visitors who were trying to establish a contact with the surrounding rather than disrupting the natural equilibrium that you can sense all around you.
I once again felt the power and originality of Mother Nature; I felt the embracing warmth of the Sun as it kept shining on us, with my eyes protected by RayBan sunglasses from an almost unbearable light reflection on the white sand.
I don't think there are words to describe the experience we had this morning.
I had been in other places on this globe resembling to the stereotypical image all of us have of a "Desert" with a capital "D": Canary Islands off the Coast Of Morocco on the Island of Gran Canaria, the Dunes of Oregon, the beautiful dunes of "Torre Dei Corsari" in the Sardinian Costa Verde, but nothing compares to this place.
The color really stands out and makes the difference, I was impressed with the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, but to actually be able to take the white sand in my hand, play with it, change the shape of my surroundings; that has no price.
We left White Sands National Monument after about 60 minutes of wandering around, experiencing what it means to be free, lifting that heavy weight from our shoulders and just totally relaxing and enjoying the moment.
Our next destination for the day has been Roswell, NM, whose sign says they're famous for being the "Dairy Capital Of The Southwest", but that everybody knows because of what happened in the 40's, with UFOs, Aliens' autopsies, and major crashes.
I was sort of disappointed with this mid-sized city, but I guess part of it goes back to my expectations of what Roswell should have looked and "felt" like from my personal imagination.
The infamous Hangar 84 where they supposedly first collected the pieces of the the wreckage from the UFO is not open to the public anymore (they started opening the Hangar to the public in 2005 for money rasing purposes, but the obviously stopped at some point).
I wanted to go see Hangar 84 at least from the outside, but even with the help of technology I haven't been able to find a precise point where the Hangar is physically located, so we decided to give up on that.
We continued driving South East towards Carlsbad, NM where we were supposed to stay for the night, but then decided to skip and keep driving to Texas.
We eventually got to Texas around 5PM, and all of a sudden it was 6PM since we went from Mountain to Central Time.
Here is a picture of "The Bug" with the welcoming State Sign:
And here is a picture of the Italian traveler:
Can you believe that today we passed the 14,000 miles mark on our journey?
It's hard to believe, but that's exactly what happened, 14,000 miles, equals to 22,400 Kilometers! That's a long way to get to Texas!
One more thing I learned today through this 475 miles day trip, is that Texas is huge! Oh yes, I knew that, but I still quite didn't have an idea of how huge this State is!
Here's a picture of Hwy285, with a 75mph speed limit, it makes it for a nice ride from New Mexico all the way down to I-10.
We initially thought about stopping in Fort Stockton (about 300 miles away from San Antonio, TX), but then, realized that basically all the rooms in the city were booked!
We tried to ask what was going on in town, but without any luck.
We decided to get on I-10 and drive East to see if would have been luckier along the Interstate, and that's when I realized how big Texas is.
I started wondering about it when I saw a sign promoting a Best Western that was "only" 106 miles away, and made a comment about how stupid it was to place a sign to start advertising at such a ridiculous distance...!
Well, little did I know that that was the distance we would have ended up driving to get to our hotel. And so here we are, in Ozona, TX, some 200 miles away from San Antonio, TX (Probably the only positive side of being here! LOL).
We also found out why all the hotels in the area (150 miles radius) are sold out. They're starting new explorations for possible future drilling. There's a truck next to "The Bug" that has something to do with "Wells", go figure!
This is a pretty good business for the Hospitality industry, as they will be solidly booked for a couple of years to say the least.
So, here we are, in Black Gold country (or so they hope), on our way to San Antonio, TX, Austin, and Houston, for our personal tour of Texas and its wonderful steakhouses! ;-)
Tomorrow we hope to be in San Antonio by mid afternoon, so that we can get a chance to check in at a hotel, do some sightseeing, and generally enjoy the city and what it has to offer.
Good night from Ozona "Middle of Nowhere", TX,
Nico
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