We knew it was going to be a long day so we started out pretty early from our hotel in Silver City, NM to the Gila Cliff Dwellings. It was only 45 miles away but the road was very curvy and steep inclines and declines. It took us almost an hour and half to get to the monument. It is in a very secluded area. Once there we hiked up to the cliff dwellings. It was about a mile and half round trip but it had some big hills to get to the top. While we were there, we stopped to talk to Craig, a volunteer. He shared a lot of information with us while we waited for a group of boy scouts to get far enough ahead of us. We were able to climb into the actual dwellings which is so cool. On our way back to the trail head we met a couple of lizards. Check out the pictures below. After our hike back we took the less curvy way out of the park and headed to White Sands.
White Sands National Monument
After Gila we headed towards Deming, NM where stopped for lunch and continued on our long road to White Sands. It was 212 miles between each place and took us almost 4 hours. From Deming to White Sands the road was very boring. We somehow managed to avoid the huge thunderstorm south of Las Cruces. We could see it most of the drive but never drove through it. It was a strange experience. White Sands is very interesting. Out of nowhere there is white sand everywhere. We drove the road back to the dunes and the pavement ended and we were driving on hard sand. It looked like we were driving on packed snow. We got back to the dunes area and people were sledding down the dunes just like snow. I even made a snow angel. The only difference is it is really hard to climb the sand dunes because my feet kept sliding. Very odd.
After White Sands we made our way to El Paso, TX for the night. Again, it was a very long and boring drive. We got to our hotel and relax for a bit and headed to see the Sun Bowl Stadium. Eric is big into college bowl games so this was a highlight for him. We had issues in El Paso as most of the radio stations were in Spanish! We saw a gigantic red X and realized after the fact that was Mexico. We were so close! We went to a Great American Land & Cattle Co for dinner. We shared a 2 pound sirloin. It is Texas, everything is bigger in Texas! Haha!
Day 2 miles driven: approximately 350…very long and boring miles.
More pictures can be found here.
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