Day Forty Two: White Sands...19/11/08

We got the heck out of Roswell and made our way to a town called Alamogordo. It was a pretty short journey today, just over two hours. We're not too far from the White Sands Missile Range where the first ever atomic bomb was detonated. They still test missiles there on a regular basis, although I'm sure they won't let us anywhere near the place. Earlier today we went over to the White Sands National Monument which is adjacent to the missile range. It's 240 square miles of white gypsum sand dunes, which apparently can be seen from outer space. We intended to go sand surfing, but we got there pretty late so we'll probably go back tomorrow and see what we can get up to. It's a really cool place, walking over the dunes you'd almost think we were in the Sahara Desert. Although for some reason the sand is almost ice cold. New Mexico isn't as warm as some of the other states we've passed through, but it's definitely still warmer than a Irish summer. We've actually being going around saying things like "it's a bit chilly today". We're not going to know what hit us when we step off that plane in January!!!