Mountains, White Sands, and a Solar Eclipse

We hadn't really planned what we would do today, but as we talked a plan began to develop.

We drove to Artesia and turned west going through the Lincoln National Forest.  The drive began with desert views and then turned to mountains.  We went through this tunnel

and were treated to mountain views.

We stopped in Alamagorda for lunch and then proceeded to

We stopped at the visitor center and watched the film telling about the animal and plant life in the dunes.  We then went to see the dunes for ourselves.  The sand is made from gypsum rock and sparkles in the sun.  At the beginning, there are more plants,

and then as you go further, it is pretty much nothing but white sand dunes with purple mountains in the background.

There were people sledding down the dunes.

We walked to the top and all you could see was white sand reaching to the base of the mountains.

We left White Sands National Monument to head back east through Ruidoso.

We arrived in Roswell in time to have a quick dinner before the annular solar eclipse.  We had heard that we would be in the vicinity of the eclipse when we arrived in Carlsbad, so we ordered Welder's Glass 14 from Amazon and had it delivered to the Escapees Park.

We went to the city park and joined other people waiting for the event.  The eclipse began with the moon creeping into the sun.  Here's what we saw through the glass.

Once, the annular eclipse began, we removed the filter from the camera.

Then the moon began moving across the sun leaving a crescent sun.

The sun began to set leaving this point peaking out from the horizon.

The sun set ending a most spectacular day!