After a night in Las Cruces, it was off to meet Nana, Granddad and cousin Paul at White Sands National Monument for some dune sledding. Nana and Granddad had been there with their other four grandchildren (including Paul), but this was the first time for Cielo and Eero, so naturally they had to drive over from Fort Worth to meet us.
Here's Cielo sledding down a tall dune right to Granddad's feet.
The sand was brilliantly white, and surprisingly smooth. It had rained the night before, which, according to Paul, who has been several times, made the sledding conditions excellent. You can see the grain of the sand under this guy's feet:
Paul, Cielo, Eero, Alison and Granddad on top of a dune.
Eero and Cielo at the base of the dune, Granddad and Alison on top, and Nana and Paul next to the minivan.
After a few regular sleds down the hill, Paul took to rolling down and yelling like he was caught in an avalanche. So naturally Eero and Cielo had to do that, too.
After leaving the Monument, we drove up through Cloudcroft and to Carlsbad. Up in the mountains we stopped and looked back - the extremely white area in the upper left of this picture are the white sand dunes. The line of trees show you where the canyon (and the running water) are.
In Cloudcroft we ate at "Western Bar". Eero and Cielo were thrilled to get to drink root beer out of the bottle.
