February 22, 2024
Ride 16 - White Sands National Park
We’ve been looking forward to this ride since we did it last year. But first, back to how the day evolved.
We started this morning in Albuquerque with the intention of driving to Alamogordo and finding a local ride. Along the way we turned down the “recommended” road from the maps app only to find ourselves at a closed and restricted access point to the White Sands Missile Range. So we turned around for option 2 but first saw a historic marker for the Trinity Site.
The Trinity Site was the location of the first atomic bomb test thus ushering in the atomic era which changed the course of history. From what I can figure, the closed road we drove down would have taken us close to the actual site. Kinda makes my skin tingle a little wondering if things out there still glow in the dark.
But … our real focus today was riding the the White Sands National Park and the park simply is like no other place we have ever cycled.
The sand is actually gypsum sand which is what is used in the production of drywall and plaster. The deposit is actually the largest area in the world although the park only encompasses a small portion of the entire deposit.
What we notice is once you are riding on the sand, it is very firm and hard packed although if you get in a wind blown section, it becomes very slick and you lose traction.
One could probably take hundreds of photos and never see quite the same thing and it would be interesting to find a marked spot and take that photo over the course of 365 days to see the changes a year would bring.
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As this is a short ride, we opted to head towards El Paso for tomorrow’s ride and perhaps get a view of the famous border wall. No desire to head into Mexico, however.
Today's ride: 16 miles (26 km)
Total: 1,567 miles (2,522 km)
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10 months ago