This is a two-part blog post, so if you didn’t see the first part, you can catch up here.

At some point in the planning process of this trip, I convinced Dani that we should visit White Sands while in New Mexico, since it was only a mere three and a half hours away from Albuquerque. I’d been to White Sands twice before, both times while in college, but I wanted a chance to go back as a real photographer and, essentially, see if it was as awesome as I remembered. Plus the balloon fiesta didn’t have many (if any) events happening mid-week, so we thought it would be a good time to go. Let me just tell you that three and a half hours of driving in the desert feels more like double that. Not a lot of scenery in these here parts. An advertised “rest stop” was literally a bench and a trash can along the side of the road. Dani managed to not be too annoyed at all the car games I wanted to play, and eventually we found ourselves in White Sands a couple hours before sunset.

Yup. Still just as awesome as I remembered.

What makes White Sands different from other places with sand dunes is the sheer size, and also the color. These dunes take up 275 square miles of desert, making it the largest gypsum dune field in the world. That’s nuts! And it looks so brilliantly and brightly white sometimes it hurts your eyes. I read that the sand grains start out clear and translucent, but when they scrape up against each other, the scratches make them appear white. So the whole place looks like snow-covered hills. Unbelievably beautiful.

Dani was indeed here, with her White Sands t-shirt she bought at the Gap. In Maryland. I’m just jealous I didn’t have one too.

I think I look cool in this photo. Walking off into the sunset.

And then of course I had to be not cool and ask Dani to take a photo of me jumping. I think I have one of these in nearly every place I’ve visited. 

Okay, back to more pretty sand dunes.

Then sunset really started happening.
    

Obligatory selfies. You’d think I’d be better at the timing for this jumping photo since I was the one pushing the button.

We wanted to stay longer and take more night shots, but some park official was driving around with a pre-recorded message blaring through his speakers that the park was about to close, and we didn’t want to be locked in overnight, so we left.

The next morning it looked a bit like rain. Then more and more like rain the closer we got to the park. This weird little thing was on the side of the road (but check out the sky!).

It did sprinkle a bit, and we could always see the rain in the distance, but for the most part we stayed dry and ended up with some epic skies. EPIC.

It was different every direction we turned, cloudy and gloomy on one side, beautiful and blue on another. We could not have picked a more perfect time to be there!

I’m deeming these next two our inspirational wanderlust photos (available for purchase if anyone would like them poster-size.)

We amused ourselves by doing goofy poses. My first attempt at yoga:

Back to normal here.

Nope, fooled ya. Not done being silly yet. I’m so athletic, running in the sand.

I mean, this doesn’t even look real.

After spending the morning hours photographing what you just saw, we headed back to Albuquerque. The only major thing left on our list of stuff we wanted to do was the Sandia Peak Tramway. It was kinda rainy and cold in Alb (as we took to calling it, because, let’s be honest – that is a lot of syllables and not easy to spell) so it was the perfect indoor(ish) activity. I didn’t have super high expectations for this, and ended up thinking it was actually pretty cool. I mean, you’re traveling up a mountain for nearly 3 miles in a cable car. Just marveling at the engineering alone is enough to make it interesting, but the view didn’t suck either. This is from the bottom:

Going up. This landscape looks almost sepia-toned, but really it is the window tint I’m shooting through. 

At the top! Brrrrrr…..

Right before we headed back down, I snapped this. I love how the sun is hitting that one long sliver of the mountain.

And that’s it, guys! I don’t have any profound words to wrap this up with, but I will say I truly loved everything about this trip. When you are seeing things beautiful enough to make you cry, it is totally worth the time and money for that experience, in my opinion. I’ll never forget the feeling of staring up at the hundreds of balloons floating along like bubbles in the sky, or the cool sand between my toes as I ran down the dunes. That is what traveling is all about for me, these moments when everything seems aligned and perfect in the world, and you can’t imagine anywhere else you’d rather be.