White Sands National Monument - Winter in Summer Part One

Arriving in Alamogordo was like a breath of different air... not fresh, because it was just a little town with a bunch of big box stores on the Main Street, but different.  I had been in the forests and the deserts and in little strange towns that were throw backs to way back; cities that are cool and hip, and cities that are not so cool and not so hip (sorry Houston).  Alamogordo felt like going back just to when I was a kid and this was what a small town was like.   

I found the campground and got situated.  I didn’t tell you about some of the RV related fun I was having on this leg of the trip.  When I got stuck on that street, my steps didn’t come down.  Trust me, at that point, jumping down from the high perch of the RV was the last of my worries.  I just wanted to get out of that cul-de-sac.  

The night before, I walked around the RV from the left instead of the right, not my normal, but for some reason the choice of the moment, and there on the ground was a chunk of black PVC type pipe (I now know it’s called ABS pipe).  Hmmmm... a chunk of my kitchen sink drain broke off in two places!  OY!!   

Are you keeping a list of all these little problems that keep cropping up?  I am.  And the list is not exactly short.  Luckily I am scheduled at the RV place in Albuquerque and should be able to get stuff fixed.  But living without steps?  Living with no kitchen sink?  Really? 

Anyway, so I pull into the KOA (Kampgrounds of America) campground and the manager was the nicest guy ever.  When he asked me how things were going and I told him of my foibles, he promptly offered to come and check things out.  He spent an hour with me pouring over everything.  He went under the coach to see if he could see a loose wire on the steps, and we devised how to get the pipe fixed properly.  I have worked with PVC pipe before and know those solvents, but this was different.  If I could get the ABS, cool.  If not, I had to get a special agent to bond the two different types of pipe together.  Hmmmmmm.  No one ever trusted my plumbing skills before (ok, admittedly there may have been just a tiny bit of good reason for that, but we are not here to bring up foibles from 25 years ago, let’s just stick to todays foibles, which are quite sufficient, thank you!), but I really didn’t want to be without a kitchen sink!  It’s not fun washing dishes in the bathroom, believe me! I tried.  It’s not pretty.   We will come back to the plumbing situation... I had to consider my options, so you have to wait to hear what happened!

SO, after much much time playing with the issues, I got the lowdown on the area from the manager.  When I remarked at how magnificent the mountains were, the response was that the warm weather and the mountains were just about all Alamogordo had going for it.  Haha!  Poor Alamagordo!  Anyway, I learned that basically White Sands was all there was to do unless I wanted to visit the pistachio farms.  Evidently, Alamagordo is a HUGE producer of pistachios.  Who’da thunk? 

The best recommendation was to go to White Sands at night.  There was a sunset ranger walk that was highly recommended, but just being there at night was special.  

It was mid afternoon still so I ran over to Home Depot and went to the plumbing section.  After pouring over the various options of supplies and such, a HD employee came over and listened to my story and confirmed how I had to do things.  He also helped me figure out how to (semi) neatly cut the existing pipe to patch in a new section.  Is your heart pounding at the thought?  Mine was.  But I bought all the supplies and headed back.   

Now it was getting late... so I headed out to the White Sands National Monument.  It was a 30 minute drive past the big box stores and out a super straight, super high speed limit road that literally flew by.  I went to the visitors center only to find that “sunset” was 6:45, eventhough the sun was still high in the sky!  Well, it was 7:15, so I blew that.  But I went into the park anyway.  Did I tell you that I bought a National Park Pass in Carlsbad Caverns? I did.  $80 for an annual pass... avoided the $12 fee at the caverns, so $68 left to amortize.  The pass should have saved me on this visit, but since it was late, the Park Ranger just said to go on in.  (Note - I am still counting it.  $10.  $58 left to go.)   She told me that I didn’t miss anything and I was in for a treat.  It was just the right time.  Cool!

In I went and started the 8 mile drive into the park.  It was like all the rest of these desert areas - brown, sage green, a cactus here and there, lots of yucca type plants.  OK, where’s the white?  I kept driving and sure enough the brown sand started getting lighter and lighter.  Around one bend it was all the sudden white sand.  But with all the same plants and the same, here-a-tumbleweed, there-a-tumbleweed.  I just wasn’t impressed.  I felt like I was in for a let down.  This just wasn’t going to be something special.  OK, it’s still pretty.  Keep going, Steven.  See what’s what.  

I am going to stop here.  SO much to write about, I don’t want to overwhelm you.  

Open items:

Does the piping get fixed? 

Do the steps extend or retract ever again? 

Does Steven break his leg jumping down from over four feet repeatedly? (Hint... no) 

Does White Sands get any better? 

Does Alamagordo get any better?

Stay tuned for more... 

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