I could see the clouds, partying a little bit in the distance there.

It's almost nine o'clock.

The park actually opens at seven a.m. But since, you know it was cloudy this morning and drizzling a little bit, we just decided to take our time, have some breakfast and head out.

Now.

We're excited to do some sledding down the little dunes there and hopefully kuma can join us too.

I don't know how much she's gonna freak out or not freak out because it's pet friendly.

So we're excited that this national park actually allows pets.

A lot of national parks, they keep it pretty limited to where you can take your pets.

But this one, they didn't really have any, we didn't see any restrictions.

So hopefully she can come sledding with us to get a sled, you can bring your own sled to go down these students.

But the visitor center also provides sleds for a fee.

Of course, I think it was around $20.

We'll find out when we get there.

It's not bad.

Yeah, we can just share anyway.

Yeah, it's kind of like renting a sled and I didn't, we could have bought one beforehand of course that like walmart or something, but I didn't want to just carry that in our car the whole time because we're already kind of pact with all our luggage since we are doing a cross country road trip.

She was in florida.

I live in California.

I mean we we never really see snow so they're never going to use a sled again.

Yeah, so I'm totally fine with paying the fee.

I forgot how much the fee was to get into the park, but this year I decided to get the national Annual National Park Pass, which is about 80 bucks.

Um So you know if you go to like three or 44 or five parks, probably it will cover the cost.

Um And on this trip we're going to two national parks.

So I'm already like halfway there and I figured you know what, I might go to more national parks or maybe this will push me to go to more national parks and then make up my money for that.

And plus I don't mind, you know, giving back to the park anyway because I do appreciate their service and appreciate that we get to enjoy these parks.

Mhm.

Turn right, then the destination is on your left, look at this little cute visitors.

All right, so we're here, we're gonna go to the visitor center and find out about that sled.

And also I need to park my park pass because I bought it on our II dot com R.

E.

I.

Dot com but they forgot to punch a hole in it.

They're supposed to punch a hole where um you know the date the month starts, but they forgot to do it.

So they're like, oh you can just go to any visitor center and do it.

So it's like, okay, I got my sled.

Yeah, There you go, relax.

So I used one is $15 and then um, the wax closed about two bucks.

And so the gift shop, this is where you get the sled.

It's not open until nine a.m. So I'm glad we actually came later because we wanted to get this first before we went inside.

All right, we got our sled, I'm ready to go to the feast stations so they can punch my card because they weren't able to do that at the visitor center.

So visitors center looks like they have like a gift shop and a little museum and I believe you can watch a video too.

Yeah, there was a little video area which might be kind of interesting to watch just as dogs on leash at all times.

No drinking, no alcohol.

Yeah, and there's no water available.

So you have to get at the visitors center if you want, Watch Fee is usually $25.

They gave me like this nice tag that you can put on your car to bring it up high.

Thank you.

So I got this annual pass on our, our ei dot com and they forgot to punch a hole in it.

Thank you.

Take that says park closes at six PM.

So most likely what we're gonna do is check out the area right now, do some sledding.

Um just kind of scope it out and I will probably back at like sunset time because we've heard that the sunset is gorgeous.

Around here there is a couple of a few trails, there's a dune life nature trail, play a trail, inter doomed boardwalk, some kind of group use area amphitheater Al Khali, or have you say that flat trail and then there's a camping area.

So it's a fairly a small park, I would say.

So it looks like you kind of drive, you keep going straight Um for about six miles if you want to keep going, you can go six miles and then Um the loop is about looks like two miles and then it takes you back and then you drive back six miles.

So it's like go straight and then there's like a small loop and then you come back.

I believe like once you see some sand dunes are like people sledding, you can just stop over anywhere and do it.

It says gypsum dunes are firmer and cooler than other types of dunes, many people enjoy sledding on these unusual dunes, so I'm hoping since the sand is more dense that it'll be easier to walk on because when we went to Valley of Fire State Park, a lot of the trails are all sand and that was really tough to walk in there were pretty easy trails, but wow, the sand made it so much harder.

So it's good to wear boots.

So we both wore boots pictures online.

I see a lot of people, they just go barefoot when they're sledding.

I noticed I noticed them.

But it's like they're wearing summer clothes.

Okay.

So it's like, well, I don't, I don't know if people really do that in the winter.

We were in the wintertime.

So there's a dune life nature just passed another trail right there.

There's a couple of trials we passed by but I've kind of seen like reviews of those and they don't seem too interesting.

So we're just gonna keep on.

Yeah, it does look like snow though.

Mm hmm.

I feel like we're driving through.

I think the more we drive, the more dramatic the landscape will get because now it's starting to narrow in and just like we're having more sand dunes near us.

This is nice.

Oh, this looks so cool.

Nothing on this flight.

So I'm going to stop here.

That's the Alkali flat trail area.

Triangle sliding here.

These are, this is fine sand in some spots, but other spots, it's like dense sand.

Candy is going to find a good sled spot.

It's kinda flat right here.

Yeah, it never go down that way.

It's like a lot of work just going up doing one sled.

Candy's scrubbing it down with that wax.

Yeah, real nice and slippery.

How you doing looks like there's a path here.

I don't even know you hold on the sides.

Okay kuma you want to come on with me.

She was like no, I just want to play with the sand, playing with the sand is cool.

You don't want to go sledding kuma, what's in there, what are you doing?

So here I go, I'm gonna go down this thing if I won't even like move more like how do I move?

Oh no starting.

Yeah bye.

Come on.

Who was trying to follow you?

She gave up.

I did it thank you.

It's like it's cool.

It's a lot of fun going down this but coming up is a struggle.

She loves going down running down the hill.

It's so cute.

Alright so we just did some sledding and it's a lot of fun.

But also a lot of work.

It is, it's a lot of work.

It's tiring but a good workout.

It's really bright right now.

So I'm having trouble seeing like once the sun comes out, all that reflection from the white sun like hits you right in the eyes.

So good thing to have sunglasses here.

Some clouds came in a few times so that was nice but it does get pretty warm once you're moving around and sledding.

So it's actually really nice weather right now.

It is like I definitely don't need a coat right now.

I mean even this is a little warm right now.

It's like what 60 something right now.

I don't have my weather up.

But It's probably like in the low 60s and it feels great.

It feels really great right now.

It's like the perfect weather for this kind of thing.

Is that Al Ghali flat trail.

It says this trail is not flat exclamation point, but it's five miles looped, which is about three hours.

You need to take caution and make sure you keep track of your landmarks.

Just be aware.

Okay, so we're on the Alkali Flats trail.

Now, this is the one that I read about where it's the best trail to do if you want to get like those nice pictures or a view of like the untouched sand, the more further down you walk the footprints, footprints.

So we got puma with us.

She is, they have to be leashed.

Yes.

So make sure she has leashed.

She has a fancy new, she has set Now Bandelier Bandelier, look at this, look at your fancy ground.

Now we're all matching Bandelier Bandelier Bandelier look at all that.

A lot of dunes.

Yeah, yeah, we're there.

That looks crazy where it goes straight down.

I love like the mountain view.

You just have to make sure you look at the landmarks and see where you're going, but they have markers, they have markers throughout the trail.

So make sure you keep track of that.

So yeah, this is definitely easier to walk in the sand then valley of fire because the value of fire is very thin sand, fine sand.

Kind of like when we're going up to go sledding.

It was like that, but here it's all dense.

It's all packed down so it's very easy to walk.

But what a crazy view.

Mm hmm.

Yeah, look at how cool this is.

I mean, you could walk forever here.

I feel like, I mean I see somebody like way down there.

They're having some fun.

It's so weird.

Like you could really hear what everybody is saying.

Yeah, the echo here is unreal.

It's like even when I was talking in a low voice, you could still hear me like far away.

Mhm.

Okay, so we just walked a little bit.

Um not even that far, but you like stay away from you can have your own space anywhere around here.

Really?

Yeah, there's a lot of space and it's all the same scenery.

So, you know, no one's fighting for the one little spot that's unique.

It's all the same.

So I think that's why it's easier to spread out and really enjoy the views go sledding.

We see kids just like tumbling down.

A lot of fun for the kids.

Like I don't think I'll be tumbling down anything, but it was fun.

You know, definitely sledding down.

I really like it here and the weather is, it's a little hot right now, but the breeze is coming right now.

It feels so good.

It's actually perfect weather.

Yeah, I think this is the perfect time to go.

I don't know if we got lucky with the weather that if it's normally a little bit cooler than this, this time of year, but I think it's usually like this for like the thanksgiving november time.

So I would say like this is a great time to come to white sand.

Yeah, it's perfect.

And then just bring like one coat with you because we're not even wearing a coat and we feel great.

So great.

We're going to take a break, go, eat lunch in town by our hotel and then we're gonna come back maybe like a couple hours before sunset to take more photos and hopefully see a great sunset.

I know, fingers crossed.

I would love to see an amazing sunset.

Especially here.

Yeah, we went back into town and to Alamogordo near our hotel and we got some food candy, got some Mcdonalds, I got some KFC.

We just figured fast food will be the most convenient and most fast sunset is around I think a little after five and it's 4 13 right now and we'll be back at the park at nine minutes.

So I think we'll make it for the sunset and hopefully we'll see the sensitive, but I'm starting to see clouds.

So hopefully that's not the case, but we'll see, we're going back anyway.

Mhm.

A lot more cars now here, they just parked on the side.

Yeah.

Now that we're back at sunset time.

There's a lot more people out way more than earlier today.

Okay so not too many cars at the Alkali Flat Trail parking area and this is where we wanted to come back to two, take some pictures and watch the sunset.

Are you ready?

Miss kuma?

I'm gonna go on again.

Okay.

Yeah nice.

We got V.

I.