New year, New Mexico!
Because New Year’s Day happened to fall on a Friday — and I don’t have to work on federal holidays — my good friend Waxford and I spontaneously decided to travel to White Sands together to take advantage of the three-day weekend.
We aren’t really celebrating 2021, lemme be clear. It’s probably gonna suck as much as 2020. I have zero expectations.
I drove (about eight hours) from Flagstaff to El Paso, and Waxford flew from Houston to El Paso. Texas is huge. Why is Texas so huge?
We planned this entire trip like, 14 hours before it happened, no joke. Waxford booked his flight the day before and we didn’t bother booking a hotel until we were both in El Paso.
So, yes, White Sands National Park is in Alamogordo, New Mexico, and we stayed in El Paso, Texas. Waxford flew into El Paso, so it just made sense to book a cheap hotel there near the airport, and make the 90-minute drive to White Sands as a day trip.
So, that’s what we did! I picked Waxford up and we went straight to our hotel. All the restaurants were closed in downtown El Paso for New Year’s Day (plus, yunno, THAT PANDEMIC) so we just spent the night eating dinner at the hotel restaurant and watching movies (Miracle!) in our hotel room.
We woke up early the next day, grabbed a quick breakfast, and then made the 90-minute drive to White Sands.
We stopped by the visitor center so Waxford could buy a sled (sand dune sledding is a thing here, apparently) and then made the drive into the park.
Guys, I cannot stress this enough. If White Sands isn’t on your list… put it there.
White Sands was breathtakingly magical. I don’t really like sand, but I was blown away by this place. It’s just mile after mile of never-ending blindingly-white sand dunes.
The sand is so soft and glittery and it almost looks like snow.
The park is surrounded on three sides by a mountain range, which I can’t even do justice with my iPhone camera, of course.
It’s really easy to get lost in White Sands, full disclosure. The park has a road that loops through it, but visitors are given free reign of the dunes. The further you travel away from the road, the fewer people, footprints and sled tracks you have to deal with. However, there are zero natural landmarks to guide you — it’s all just sand — so it’s incredibly easy to stray from your car and get lost.
Definitely not speaking from experience, nope.
I’m also still getting used to weather here in the Southwest. I brought tons of layers. I started off the day with hiking boots, but quickly changed into my Tevas because the sand was EVERYWHERE. There was a high of 45 degrees, but it felt a lot warmer in the sun. I was totally comfortable in shorts (until the sun set) and I kept taking my Patagonia NanoPuff jacket off and putting it back on again. Seriously, the weather here is wild.
You can also tell I’m from the Midwest and cold is in my blood because everyone else at the park was fully wrapped up in pants/ jackets/ beanies/ etc.
After about three hours of exploring the park, we hopped in my Jeep and headed into downtown Alamogordo for lunch.
I was honestly pleasantly shocked at how seriously this part of the country is taking COVID. Given that I live in Arizona — one of the biggest COVID hotspots in the world — and our governor has treated the entire thing like a joke, I was so happy to see that pretty much everyone in both Alamogordo and El Paso was taking the pandemic super seriously.
With that said, all of the restaurants in Alamogordo were open for takeout only, so Waxford and I ended up grabbing Mexican food from Rizzo’s and then having a picnic in the parking lot on the roof of the Jeep.
Fun fact: A random guy literally pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant and asked if he could take our picture because he loved our version of social distancing. He texted me this photo after we had a nice little conversation with him from six-feet away.
After lunch, we stopped at a store to grab some beer, and went back to White Sands to catch the sunset.
I’ll say it again: If White Sands isn’t on your list, put it there immediately. And don’t miss sunset!
Because alcohol (without glass bottles, of course) is allowed in the park this time of year, we crawled back up to the top of a dune to watch the sunset with PBRs in hand.
I let Waxford pick the beer, FYI.
I can’t even begin to tell you how magical the park was at sunset. The setting sun brought out all the colors of the mountain range opposite the sunset. Potato phone photos couldn’t capture the stunning detail of the mountains, so you’ll just have to take my word for it — or go see for yourself.
My only, only complaint? The clean-up process.
I made Waxford help me vacuum out my Jeep right before I dropped him off at the airport. And, I’m still finding sand in my Jeep, days later.
The rest of our trip was pretty uneventful. After we got back to El Paso, we picked up takeout from a noodle restaurant and then spent the rest of our evening watching more movies in our hotel.
I won’t apologize for sounding boring. I take COVID very seriously.
Then, Sunday, it was time to leave. We grabbed breakfast at a blissfully empty generic chain restaurant because it was convenient, vacuumed out the Jeep and said our goodbyes at the airport.
Then, the eight-hour solo drive back to Flagstaff so I could be ready for work (firefighter training!) bright and early Monday morning.
Also, here’s the quick affiliate link widget if you’re interested in what I wore.
That’s about it! I really wish I would have been able to explore El Paso a bit more, but I’m also (again) not gonna apologize for being boring and taking every COVID precaution available. I’ll definitely hopefully be back to the area sometime once COVID is over.
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This post was originally published on Jan. 19, 2020. Its timestamp has been updated to better reflect the timing of this trip.
