Making New Mexico fun!!

When I take a road trip I like to stop and "smell the roses" of wherever we are. It's good for two reasons...I like to see interesting new places and things, but it also get's me out of the car...everyone knows I'm the worst one on a road trip!! So as I contemplated driving through New Mexico again, I had to find things to do along the way. So here's what we came up with...they were really good finds. We stopped at the missile testing site (doesn't that confirm that we were in the middle of nowhere!!) and toured their museum of really old missiles. I guess they keep the ones we use now locked up somewhere so we can't spy for the Chinese! Here we are with some cool missiles on a REALLY hot day!


And nearby is the White Sands National Park where you can see the most beautiful white sand dunes ever. It was truly blinding and breathtaking to be surrounded on all sides by never ending sand. And another fun thing is sledding down the dunes on your sleds. It kinda confuses you're brain to be sledding on white stuff in 100 degree heat. Make sure you bring lots of water!!



After sledding for as long as we could tolerate the heat, we popped up the trailer and used the outdoor shower to get the sand off of most parts of us. The shade was welcome relief and getting back into the car with the AC was heavenly!! This place was definitely worth the trip and something unique to remember about our vacation!!

Who knew that the real "adventure" was about to happen though. After spending most of the morning exploring and having fun we piled into the car to actually get started towards home. We made it about 90 miles down the road (just outside Las Cruces NM) when we had a blow out on the travel trailer. I was driving and felt the cruise control surge and when I looked back we were spouting black smoke and rubber everywhere. I quickly pulled over and David began the changing of the tire. Being at the side of the freeway scares me. I think of all the police video I've seen of cops being hit by passing cars, etc. So it was nerve racking for me to sit in the car with the kids while David did his thing. Well, things got worse as I felt the Suburban lurch and the jacked up trailer fall, with David underneath!! David yelled for me to come and "jack the trailer off of him"!! Luckily the trailer was attached to the car and couldn't fall all the way down, but David's hips were supporting some of the weight and he didn't care for that. So I was able to jack the trailer up enough for him to get out and we then worked together on a Plan B for fixing the tire. This time we used the stability jacks from the travel trailer to support moving the jack to get things high enough to get the tire changed. It was an adventure!! We then proceeded to Las Cruces to get new tires and a nice long lunch at Chili's. After our loss of time we ended up driving all night at pulling into home at 2am on Thursday...exhausted, dirty, and all in one piece...for the most part. Great to be home.