Today we had two places we wanted to visit, White Sands National Monument and White Sands Missile Range Museum. Sometimes things don't go as planned as we know and when we arrived, after driving 65 miles, at White Sands NM, we found this outside the visitor center:
The visitor center was open so we went in to find out what was going on and were told that an unmanned drone from the missile range had crashed in the sand dunes and the entire monument was closed until further notice! What a bummer!
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| the Organ Mountains from the east side |
We had to pass the missile range to get to the monument so we headed back and drove out to the range to see the museum.
In addition to missiles and rockets, this range is where the first atomic bomb was tested....
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| a 1/3 scale of the "Trinity" the first atomic bomb detonated on July 16, 1945 |
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| The V-2, the rocket that started the space race. Taken from Germany at the end of the war. |
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| patriot missile launcher |
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| the Organ Mountains in the background |
As we still had time in the day, we stopped at the Aguirre Recreation Area and hiked the Pine Tree Loop trl. on the east slope of the Organ Mountains. A 4 mile trail but a 1200 foot elevation gain.
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| looking down on the missile range |
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| a kind of jay? wish I could have gotten a better pic |
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| at 6900 feet there was still some frozen snow in spots |
That's a stellars jay.
ReplyDeleteToo bad about the closure, at least you had the museum to visit! Looks like a nice hike, must have been pretty steep!
thanks, don't think I'm going to get a better pic of one while we are here darn it;)
ReplyDeletethe hike was very nice as it was not only pretty but the sun was going down with those lovely soft early evening colors