Kids have it made these days. We can't go 2 blocks up the street to our friends house without one of them insisting we put a DVD on in the minivan. When I traveled with my parents as a child there was no DVD player in vehicles...DVD's didn't even exist, yet. In fact, VCR's were just becoming popular and, they were the size of very large briefcases. All I had was my imagination and the road atlas. But, this comment falls on moot ears when I explain this to my girls. This is probably the equivalent of my dad conveying one of his stories about walking to school, barefoot in the hot sand, 'uphill' both ways.
Fifty minutes into the first day of our road trip (8-9 hours a day for 2 days) my oldest daughter asked "are we there yet?". We have been explaining to both girls how long this trip will be. Of course, their pay day is the trip to Disneyland. My pay day includes their happy faces while at Disneyland but, also other attractions such as Del Mar TC.
The half-way point for us on this road trip is Las Cruces, NM. I got a pretty deal for a Mariott property off of priceline for only $50. And, it is one of Mariott's all-suite properties. On the way, I thought a visit to White Sands National Monument, NM would be fun since none of us had been there. It was cool to see what looked like snow in southern NM in August.
Since it was about 101 degrees I decided to take the easiest, shortest hike available. The trail was called the Interdune Boardwalk. Another benefit of this hike was that it was on an elevated platform, thus avoiding the "my flip flops are full of sand!" comment that would have been made by all 3 of the females in our party. Here's a picture of those 3:
The kids filled out their activity workbook which was shown to the visitor's center park ranger to get them honorary junior park ranger items such as a cool white sands patch and badge.
Oh, almost forgot. We traveled through Cloudcroft (elevation 8600 feet !) . We have been all over New Mexico but, had never been through Cloudcroft.
We were pleasantly surprised...well, ok, those of us who were awake. Dianna and I think this would be great place to re-visit....maybe rent a cabin for the week and do some hiking. Leaving the mountain was an incredible trip. We descended about 5000 ft. in less than 15 miles and the temperature went from 73 to 97.
Hopefully, Day 2 will end with a good meal at Fidel's in Solana Beach, CA. If that's too crowded we might try Tony's Jacal right next door. Until tomorrow.
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