With the FMCA Rally over, it was time to move. We had come as far west as we were going to for this part of our travels and it was time to head east, once again. Our entire spring travel was built around 2 required destinations. The first was the FMCA Rally and the second was Waco, TX to meet up with friends for the solar eclipse on April 8th.
I planned on 4 nights in Alamogordo, NM to visit White Sands National Park, Pistachioland and Truth or Consequences, NM. It was going to be a lot to pack into 4 days, especially when I discovered SO many other things to do in the area.
We knew we were getting close to Alamogordo when we saw a roadside monument for the White Sands Missile Range…
What we didn’t know at the time is that when they are actively firing missiles, the road we came in on would be closed for hours at a time. White Sands NP has a page of their website with scheduled closures. Luckily, we didn’t run into that situation, but were told it happens quite frequently. I guess we really dodged a missile. Lame joke, I know, but it was funny at the time.
The missile we didn’t dodge was the Zia Skies RV park. I knew we were in trouble when we turned onto Lemin Street…
Their website mentioned a locked gate, but this wasn’t the neighborhood I was expecting! What would have been really nice is if they had sent us the gate code, since there was no office at the park. And if there hadn’t already been someone in OUR site. It is the only RV park I have ever left a review for with the heading “DO NOT STAY AT THIS PARK!”
The weather was chilly and the wind just would not quit. That explains my hairstyle when we went to the 575 Brewing Company out first night in town…
Our first full day in Alamogordo was spent at White Sands National Park. From 1933 until 2019, it was known as White Sands National Monument. The NPS still hasn’t found the funds to update the signage…
The dunes at the park make up the world’s largest gypsum dunefield and are visible from space. A 16 mile (round trip) road leads you into the heart of the dunefield. I had no inclination to hike the dunes nor to sled on them, but it was fun to watch from the Interdune Boardwalk trail…
As we walked along the boardwalk, I marveled at the windswept patterns in the sand…
I was surprised so many people were sledding these particular dunes with all the scrub growing up when they could have driven a bit further to get to taller dunes with much less scrub. I was also surprised to see motorhomes with toads in the boardwalk parking lot…
As we drove further into the dunes, the views changed rapidly. We went from dunes with lots of scrub to acres and acres of tall dunes…
The most perplexing thing I saw was a sign where the road turns from pavement to packed sand…
Look closely at rule #3. Apparently, from Feb. 1-May 31, alcohol is prohibited, but it is allowed from June 1-Jan. 31. My guess would be Feb-May are the months of peak visitors. Extreme heat in the summer and snowy conditions in the winter would make visiting less appealing from June to the end of Jan. It was March when we visited, so no picnic with beer for us at the dunes.
I did see a really cool Utility RV in one of the parking lots. Given the shape of the license plate, it definitely came from another country, but I love the mural on the back…
As we were leaving the park, we stopped to take a picture of a dunes climber and his dog taking a break…
The weather took a quick turn for the worst when we got back to Waldo! I was happy we weren’t still driving around the dunes when it started to snow/sleet…
With another National Park off the bucket list, the next day we opted to knock an Atlas Obscura item off the list – Pistachioland! I love pistachios and almost always have a bag of them in Waldo for travel days, but eating pistachio ice cream in front of the world’s largest pistachio will only happen once in my lifetime!
The United States has the largest share of pistachio farming in the world, producing almost 40% of the crop worldwide. The trees at McGinn’s farm were still in the dormant stage. It would be neat to see them loaded with one of my favorite nuts!
Thank you for coming along. Have you been to White Sands NP or Pistachioland? Let me know in the comments below!
Coming up…
An unexpected surprise just outside Alamogordo!
The Wandering RVer 
Ooooh yeah, that RV park… yikes. Speaking of park reviews, did you hear about campendium? It got bought out by one of the other RV review sites and my guess is, it will be shutting down entirely eventually. I’m not sure if you used it, but it was my go-to review site and I recommended it to everyone. Sad to see it disappear (probably behind a paywall.) Anyway… I LOVED White Sands! It was one of our favorite stops in our time on the road. SO much fun and so incredibly beautiful!
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Sketchy is the best word I can use to describe that park! I hadn’t heard about Campendium, I’ve always used RVLife. We have one more set of dunes to complete all of the dunes National Parks. We still have to get to Indiana Dunes NP. All in good time!
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