the weather is finally changing and with the warmer temperatures our wanderlust is kicking back into gear. winter months had us taking small day trips but the bulk of our weekends were spent cuddled up at home dreaming of summer.
with an original plan to roll out at midnight, excitement kept us from sleeping and we ended up hitting the road at nine. driving through the darkness the sun began to rise just as we were in the lincoln national forest, in the distance we spotted a massive white spot in the middle of a sea of brown; white sands national monument.
we've been to the sand dunes out in west texas before, but we weren't prepared for what lay ahead of us upon entering the park. miles and miles of bright white sand dunes, looking like rolling hills covered with a light dusting of snow. driving further our minds started playing tricks on us, with the morning clouds still hanging low it was impossible to tell where the dunes ended and the sky started.
a saturday, especially the first weekend of spring break, usually means very crowded parks. white sands is so vast that you can easily walk an extra hundred yards into the dunes and escape everyone into a sea of gypsum that goes on for miles with a hazy, almost unreal, mountain backdrop.
in our travels we'll sometimes go to a park and know that exploring it once is enough, sometimes we end up going back because it's close or we want to show a friend, not an hour into our drive home we were already talking about going back to white sands in the future.
