This is my last instalment of the trip we took last winter to Arizona.  Just before arriving in Tucson, Arizona we stopped off at the White Sands National Monument.  The park is near Las Cruces, New Mexico.  The 710 km field of white sand dunes  is in the Tularosa Basin and is surrounded by the San Andres and Sacramento Mountains.  It is  the world's largest gypsum dune field.   We arrived at the park around 3 pm with the idea that we would stay and watch the sunset.  It was a beautiful warm sunny day.   

On the way to White Sands we started off with a drive through Lincoln National Forest in New Mexico.  

We went for a short walk in the area- there was a hike down the trail but we stayed on top and just admired the view.  

This gives an idea of what the white sand looks like.  You can see the mountains in the distance.

As you can guess this was an amazing place to hike and take pictures.  You could walk (and we did) for miles and miles.

I took over 700 pictures here (way too many) so it was difficult narrowing down which pictures to include.  

This is a somewhat of an artistic view.  Amazing detail in the sand.

A panoramic view.

Hard to believe but we actually climbed up and down hills like this(ok maybe not quite as high).  You actually can slide down part of the way- it is a lot of fun.  Sledding is a popular activity at the park- most sledders use waxed plastic snow saucers.  We just used our feet.

Ralph and the girls were waiting for me (as usual).  

This is what caused our discomfort (more on that later).  We walked miles to find this tree.  Because of all of the hills Ralph could see it from a distance so our goal was to go and find it.  However, it was much further away that we had realized.  We thought it was so interesting to see the sand form a vase for the tree.  

You can see the mountains in the background.  It is such a beautiful area. 

It was now getting later in the afternoon so I was starting to get some colour in the sky and dunes.

More sand dunes with details.  At this point we were heading back to our car.

Now it was getting close to sunset.  You can see people in the distance as we headed back to the parking lot.  There were actually quite a few photographers carrying their tripods  just like me.  

We came across this lonely looking plant.

Now the colours were getting quite good.  There were lots of clouds to add some interest as well.

You can still make out a few details in the foreground.  

Finally the bright oranges and yellows were coming out.

Now It was a beautiful sunset with lots of red in the sky.

Just the sky!

This was one of the last shots of the evening.  Now it was time to go- it was also getting cooler out and we were getting hungry.  The only problem was that  when we got to the parking lot to get into the car it wasn't there!  Did I mention that there were several  parking lots and it was very easy to get lost?  We knew the parking lot where we had parked-just not sure of its location  in the pitch black.    We ended up walking in the dark with no lights  so we couldn't even see where we were going (no one around anymore except us and the animals and I'm not talking about the girls).  Ralph thought we were going in the right direction but I didn't want to get even further away so we turned around.  Was I panicking just because the gates lock at 8.30?  Does anyone ever look at who has signed the register which we had?   Finally we spotted a car that  was heading towards us on the road  (it was a loop road of sorts).  Was I ever glad to see the  park ranger.    He told us which way to walk (Ralph had been right after all) since he  couldn't fit all of us in the car so we just kept on walking.  He promised us he would not lock the gates until we were safely out and that he would come back to check on us after he had make another inspection.  So eventually we did find the car and the ranger followed us out to lock up so it was a bit of an adventure that I blame on the tree.   Had we not walked miles to get to it we would have found our way back in the light!  Was it worth it?  You bet!