Two epic National Parks in southern Mew Mexico. If unfamiliar, Alamogordo is where White Sands National Park, Missile Test Site and Holloman Air Force Base are located. Carlsbad Cavern is just over the TX/NM line and truly an amazing cave; however, I took a wrong turn in the desert between the two parks and had to back track to an RV safe road that took me around Roswell Mew Mexico but by the time we got there the aliens had already closed up shop. Did anyone ever tell you that driving an RV at night in the mountains is fun… they lied. Bear crossing, elk crossings, cattle crossing, deer crossing… why can’t they just say zoo crossing and stop with all the signs making me paranoid about every shadow 😳

We started with Carlsbad Cavern and WOW is an understatement. We’ve done Mammoth but this one is epically huge in comparison. Mammoth is formed by underground rivers and is larger in area but Carlsbad was formed by acids and erosion creating huge, deep opening about 800ft twisting down into the earth. We hiked down about 1.2 mile decent of switch backs and knees straining man made slope. It’s a well constructed and non-slip path but steep. The stalactites and stalagmites throughout the descent were incredible, some over 40-50 feet long and multiple out cropping of rock formations that looked like wet pour sand castles. A few hours underground and we just scratched a portion of the available trails. Thankful they have an elevator for the ascent otherwise we would have been even later, longer driving at night to White Sands. The model pictured first shows the cave structure but the scale is… hard to fathom until you’re in it. There is also an evening bat release and bat observatory but we weren’t able to explore due to time limitations. Looked pretty cool though. The twisting canyon road in and out was also a scenic drive.

After heading toward a mountain pass that was shorter but not appropriate for an RV driving in the dark, we redirected toward Roswell, NM to go up and around the mountain that Alamogordo is nestled up against. Longer but much safer, larger road but we were too late to enjoy any alien stuff and just drove by wondering if it would have been worth a stop.

After getting settled into our KOA in day light, off to White Sands National Park for sunset sand sledding. The “white sand” is actually almost pure gypsum, a mineral and not silica. It’s soft and very fine but also smooth enough to sled on like snow so off we went and the boys wasted no time tumbling down some dunes! Also caught a unique sunset over the white dunes on a few occasions during our stay.

We leave saying goodbye to “the Lady of the Mountain” which is the outline of a woman reclining on the mountain to the east of Alamogordo. We head south and west on 70 and rejoin I10 to head to Arizona and Tucson but not before crossing the continental divide. That’s the point where the water shed splits to the Atlantic and Pacific and also parallels some major train traffic. We missed Santa Fe for now due to some pending cold weather we sent insulated well enough for so hello Tucson!