Had never heard of Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Nice surprise as we drove West from Carlsbad. It had been the bottom of a sea 250 million years ago and birthed the tallest mountain in Texas at 8,749’. The park was quite an unexpected surprise. It bears only a visitors center and the sole activity is hiking various trails or backpacking into the backside of the range where you find trees and terrain like Colorado. El Capitan, the sentinel landmark, was used as a landmark by travelers on the route later followed by the Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach line. Much of the range is built from the ancient Capitán Reef in the Permian Sea. The mountains rise more than 3,000 feet above the arid floor of the Chihuahuan Desert. The park was packed with hikers and backpackers. That’s a good thing. Wish we had been able to take time to explore.

White sands was like being in snow! Great wave-like dunes of gypsum sand have created the world's largest gypsum dunefield. It is the most visit NP in New Mexico on route 70 about an hour NE of Las Cruces. The depth of gypsum sand across the entire field is about 30 feet below the interdunal surface. The tallest dunes are about 60 feet high. The White Sands Missile Range completely surrounds the park. It’s a remarkable phenomenon only about 10,000 years old and if I hadn’t been wearing sandals and shorts, would have sworn that it was snow! It’s even plowed like snow. Lots of people out at picnic tables under awnings and running or sliding down the dunes. Wish we would have had some time to walk the trails.