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Please enjoy the slideshow above and if interested, continue reading for more insight into the trip and the photographs I took.
The trip to Canyonlands wet our appetite for another road trip. The Sprinter chassis has been telling me to get the oil service done and since the nearest Mercedes dealer is in Albuquerque I decided to plan a trip around the service. Lisa wanted to come so we came up with a list places to go and things we wanted to do which included:
- visiting a couple of our good friends
- eating as much real Mexican food as possible
- visiting and photographing White Sands National Park
- vivisting Carlsbad Caverns
- buying some Hatch chili from Hatch
- visiting the Bosque del Apache and photographing the Sand Hill Cranes and Snow Geese
Maybe some of you know that I am a New Mexico native so the state, with its food, culture and beauty, is near and dear to me. I had been to these locations before but it had been many years ago. This article will focus on the trip to White Sands. I will have a subsequent post for the Bosque. I was hoping to be able to photograph the caverns but the way they have it lit washes out some of the color and any photographs would show only what they want the visiter to see not leaving any room for creative composition. The lighting is great though for the visit and I highly recommend the trip as it is truly an amazing place to see. The scale is hard to grasp and the rooms just keep getting larger and they keep on coming. We hiked all the way from the top to the bottom and were more than happy to take the elevator back up.
We drove down to Albuquerque in the afternoon and camped at a municipal RV camp in Bernalillo north of the city. The campground was only $14.00 a night with full hook-ups which is a great price. It was still an RV park, with close neighbors, and it was close to a busy road so kinda noisy. In fact both Lisa and I were having flashbacks to living in Port Hueneme California with motorcycles racing all night and sirens blaring. It was located right next to the Rio Grande with a nice view and the sunset was fantastic. After taking care of the dogs we headed out to get our first fix of Mexican food at Sadies on 4th street. I used to eat there as a kid, walking there from our house to go bowling and eat enchiladas. The enchiladas with red hadn't missed a beat as the recipe was exactly the same and the sopapillas for dessert brought me back to that time. When I lived in Santa Fe for 15 years in the 80s, I ate New Mexican food probably 5 days a week and never tired of it.
The next day after dropping the RV off, we headed to REI to do some shopping and met a long time best of a friend from Santa Fe there. We shopped and visited, then at lunch time we headed over to Tomasitas to get our second fix for chile and ordered the green chile rellenos. After lunch we passed the time at a park near to where I grew up so the dogs could get out of the jeep until they were done servicing the RV. It was late afternoon before we were able to pick up the motor home so we got on the road and headed south towards Alamogordo and our campsite at the Oliver Lee State Park. 
Oliver Lee was a part-time deputy US marshal, rancher and gunfighter who was on one side of the Lincoln county war. The state park is located where he had his ranch about nine miles south of Alamogordo. We enjoyed the campground. It was closer to dispersed camping in that the sites were separated nicely but we still had full hook-ups. Very quiet and dark at night with nice views and good hiking during the day. In doing some research for photographing white sands, it was clear that the best time to go is in the late afternoon, so in the morning I went for a hike/run up the canyon while Lisa walked the dogs close to the RV. I was a bit concerned by the wind that was blowing and I could see a cloud of sand over the dunes in the distance. Blowing sand and cameras are not a good mix and it's best to forget about lens changes, but at the same time it can be an interesting effect.
We visited the park the two evenings we were there. There was no wind and no clouds so the feeling was one of quiet with soft colors. I took advantage of these conditions and shot close to sunset and into the blue hour. The dunes in White Sands are unlike others I have visited and photographed. The park is hugely vast, one could easily get lost out there. And, the sand is fine and so white! It is much like being in snow. The reflection of the sky on the sand is really attractive to me especially during the blue hour.
I shot the images in the slideshow with my Fuji GFX 50s using either the 63mm or the 100-200mm lenses. Our time there definitely wetted the appetite for more visits and there is conversation about another trip next fall. I hope you enjoy these photographs. Please let me know your thoughts in the comments. Thank you for taking the time to read this post!
To see images from our visit to the Bosque, please visit my journal post here.