Featuring White Sands National Monument (Park!) and Lincoln National Forest in New Mexico

After throwing around lots of random plans, Susan — my favorite Canadian road trip partner — and I decided on a route through southern New Mexico and Arizona.

Our first stop was White Sands National Monument (which was officially designated a national park on Dec. 18, 2019) followed by a night in Lincoln National Forest.

Before making it to New Mexico, we drove nearly two days from Austin, Texas, stopping in Odessa to see my Aunt Lori and Uncle Barry and sweet cousins Zenna and Trig.

Afterward, we made a quick stop at the scenic drive overlook in El Paso at the base of the magnificent Franklin Mountains. We had sweeping views of El Paso and neighboring Ciudad Juárez in México. My friend and former boss Ryan gave us some great recommendations for food in El Paso, and then we headed on to Las Cruces, New Mexico.

White Sands National Monument (Park!)

Another world

White Sands NM is an absolute waking dream. The sand dunes are made of gypsum crystals, and the field is the largest of its kind on earth. The only place in our known universe that has a larger field like this is on Mars. It was like being on another planet.

Sledding with the kids

Susan and I joined the other kids with our makeshift sled, which was really just a wakeskate with removed fins, and tried to zip down the massive dunes. We were barely moving, but some children allowed us to use the track they had meticulously dug, and we made it down with some semblance of speed.

A sunset stroll through time

Afterward, the intern from Student Conservation Association, Ranger Katie (she’s not technically a park ranger, but I refused to call her anything else) led us on a sunset hike where we learned millions of years of park history and about the environmental forces at work since the beginning of time.

We took sunset photos, ran around the dunes and then left the monument to find a place to camp since all the park sites were full.

Lincoln National Forest

After leaving the monument, it was getting dark, and we needed to camp. After Susan was almost deported because we drove up on the AFB Family Camp (to be fair they advertised it as a real campground online and not just open to Air Force families) we headed into the depths of the Lincoln National Forest.

It’s technically legal to camp anywhere in a national forest, except in designated campsites. We drove around winding mountain roads for over an hour trying to find a spot. Finally, we parked near a trailhead and set up camp. We tried out my new, tiny campstove which worked like a dream, stuffed some chili and soup down our faces and turned in for the night at the crazy late hour of 8:30 p.m.

Susan, who can sleep through a nuclear disaster, made it through most of the night. I kept hearing rustling in the undergrowth, but as a very sleepy Susan assured me, “if someone wanted to kill us they probably would have by now.”

The Lincoln National Forest was gorgeous, and we had a great morning hike. We ended up doing around nine miles which was made longer by stopping every few moments to take photos with the changing leaves.

After exploring more of the national forest, we stopped again in White Sands because we loved it that much, and then headed down the road toward Arizona.