Saturday - January 3, 1998: Alamagordo, NM to Socorro, NM
More Cold War on a Warm Day!
A quick ride up the Catalina Mountains on Highway 2001(!) to the Space Center in Alamagordo affords a beautiful clear view this morning of the Tularosa Basin below. The White Sands Missile Range and White Sands National Monument stretch out for miles in every direction below us. A perfect, warm day.

We take in the four story International Space Hall of Fame at the Space Center for a couple of hours, before making our way back down into the Basin.

The White Sands National Monument is really cool. So cool, infact, that we forsake our scheduled departure for a couple of hours to hang around for the sunet over the enormous, plantless, completely white, pure gypsum dunes. The dunes are very high, and it feels like you're in a desolate snowy plain...except that it's warm out. Think R2D2 and C3PO when they get stranded in the dunes on the Tattoine planet in Star Wars. Really, really cool!

So instead of a daytime ride up North towards Taos Ski Valley (where we'll be stopping for a few days!) we do a nighttime journey up to Socorro, NM. A no-account, two-bit town that wouldn't be here if not for the Interstate. We rest our weary bones at the San Miguel Inn for the Evening...