Yesterday's drive from Dallas to El Paso took 11 hours. And just as I suspected, the scenery did change. Desert sand, cacti, and lots of flat land and temps up to 109.
We left Dallas at 5 am so that we could beat most of the heated portions of the day. We arrived at Fort Bliss military base around 4:30pm at the home of Jake and Jen Wade, friends from North Greenville. Jake is a lieutenant in charge of urban ops training. Thank you Jen and Jake for opening up your house to us and for the tour of the west side of El Paso.
If you've read the last two posts, you've seen photos of football stadiums that we've visited. I find stadiums, both football and baseball, very interesting in their architectural designs as well as history and tradition. The Wade's took us to one of the most picturesque stadiums in all of college football, the home of the UTEP Miners. The stadium is placed in a carved out mountain overlooking the Rio Grande and the border of US and Mexico. Here, the Sun Bowl is played and nearby is Glory Road, yes the setting of the movie and what was formally known as Texas Western College.
This morning we left El Paso for the White Sand National Monument, outside of Alamogordo, New Mexico. We drove about an hour and a half to what basically is 274 square miles of the whitest sand dunes you've ever seen. Jed and I purchased at a low price, sleds for sliding down the dunes. As you'll seen in the videos, it was very tiring, but it was awesome!
Right now, we're in Albuquerque, New Mexico exhausted again from another day of travel. Tomorrow, we will be at the Grand Canyon where we just saw the low temperature will be 38 degrees. Tonight, we will take a tram up a mountain for dinner.
Summer Reading Tourney
18 hours ago
4 comments:
Hey Tom- You do know that Ethel Mertz (I Love Lucy) was from Albuquerque, NM?
Except for the fact that you guys are barefoot and have on shorts, that sand looks exactly like snow!!
Both of you look so tanned. Take care. I love you.
Megie
Thanks for the video...looks like fun. There's more sand dunes like that between Arizona & California. I was amazed a few summers ago when we drove through...until then I just didn't think we had deserts like that in the good ol' USA. Definitely be dressed in layers for your trip to the Grand Canyon. The temperature shifts can be drastic depending on where you are.
I have to say that the sand sledding looked like a lot of fun.
I love the video! OK so at first I thought it was snow! haha.
It looks like you are having a blast. Can't wait to see where you go tomorrow!
Oh, you inspired me to have a blog. I am a blogger now!
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