3 days in New Mexico, part 3 - Alamogordo, New Mexico

After 8 hours of heavy snoring, we got up at 5am to start our day 2 New Mexico exploration. Our itinerary was from Albuquerque to Alamogordo to Roswell, total of 525 miles, all in one day. We packed our cameras, GPS, water and some snacks. Let's go! We drove for over an hour before the sun showed up. It was no scenic drive on our way to Alamogordo, just a long stretch of yellowish dried land with no greens, but the reflection of sunrise off the desert yielded a warm and inspiring feeling. So inspired that my friend, Brandon, drove 90mph throughout the whole ride to Alamogordo. We got there in 3 hours instead of 4.5 hours (predicted by my GPS and Google).

Alamogordo is about 200 miles south of Albuquerque. Surrounded by mountains and deserts, this town is known for a the National Space Museum, an attraction for NASA buffs and...kids like us.


We were waiting for the 4-story high museum to open. Only $4 entrance fee. The next few pictures summarized what we did inside.



I was more excited about displays outside of the museum. There were retired missile launchers, rockets, and spacecrafts.









You notice on the last picture above that there's a layer of white thing in the horizon? That's not snow. About 2o miles southwest of Alamogordo are wave-like dunes of gypsum sand that have engulfed 275 square miles of desert. This place is known as the White Sands National Monument. We took the 8 mile scenic drive which leads from the Visitor Center into the heart of the dunes.

After only 4 miles into our scenic drive, we decided to turn around and go back to the visitor center and leave for Roswell. It was noon already and we were pressing for time.