Day 5 Addendum: The World's Largest Pistachio!

How could we forget this jewel from our fifth day of the trip?!?

But in case you've ever wondered what a pistachio grove and pistachio trees look like:

At last, we're in LA

We're here and unpacked, but quite hungry so we'll post more later.

Day 5: White Sands National Monument

We woke up in beautiful Ruidoso Downs, NM yesterday. I wish I would have taken pictures of the hotel we were staying in. It was very cute and cozy. Thank you for the prayers--Patrick was able to get some sleep! After breakfast we started trying to decide what was going on with the car. The biggest problem was that it was Saturday, so every mechanic in the area we called was closed. The closest place we could find was the Sears in Las Cruces a couple hours away. After talking to my uncle Aubrey, we decided our car was safe enough to drive that far.

Because we weren't sure what was going on with our car, we cut off about an hour of our trip where we would have driven in Lincoln National Forest and gone to see a petroglyph site. But since it was along the way to Las Cruces and we really wanted to see it, we decided to take the time to stop at White Sands National Monument.

The landscape of New Mexico is desert. It's rocky, sandy soil with low shrubs and maybe a few short trees. And then, in the middle of the desert, there is this massive deposit of gypsum sand. What happens (I hope I get this right!) is that when it rains, the water becomes infused with gypsum as it runs off the mountains and soil. Then the water is collected into a nearby lake, and when the lake evaporates (since it is the desert), gypsum crystals form. Then, as the wind blows, the gypsum crystals break apart and become fine sand, almost as fine as baby powder. Because of the wind and weather patterns, all that sand ends up here in massive dunes.

The dunes are ever-changing because the wind is continuously blowing, shaping the dunes. The road into the dunes is basically snowplowed.

If you get off the path and hike over a couple dunes, it's just white sand as far as you can see in every direction. It is incredibly quiet, except for the gusts of wind. The sand is so fine and the wind so consistent that your footprints are nearly covered fifteen minutes after you make them, so everything looks perfectly pristine. The sand is almost the consistency of baby powder, so soft and dry.

People sled down the sand dunes with waxed disc sleds. Climbing up the hill was hard work and the sun was scorching hot, so we didn't sled for too long, but it was fun!

Because the dunes are continually moving, the plants must continually adapt. This plant keeps growing up taller and taller as the dune covers its base, but when the dune moves on and the plant is in a low spot, the plant can't support itself and it falls over and dies.

This plant adapts to the changing dunes by using its roots and its water supply to build a column of sand up under it so that when the dune moves, the plant still has support.

This was so incredible. Like the caverns, our pictures can't even begin to capture it. But, we do have some video of us sledding down the dunes!

http://youtu.be/1fHN24r9IJY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciueuxpcbYU

The rest of our day was spent in Las Cruces getting our car fixed. We drove a couple hours down the road and stayed in Lordsburg, NM, a couple hours before our intended destination of Tucson, so that we could get some rest and not be driving so late in case something else went wrong with the car. It was so nice to get in early and be able to relax before bedtime. Driving out from Las Cruces we saw beautiful mountains and a really nice sunset though.

safe in Phoenix

We've stopped in Phoenix for the night! So nice to be in early (before 9!) for the first time since Wednesday. Pictures from yesterday and today coming!

The fun parts of Day Four: Carlsbad Caverns

We woke up on Friday to a toasty Texas morning (nearly 100 degrees!) in Pecos. When grabbing breakfast at the front desk, we struck up a conversation with the innkeeper about our trip and where we were planning to go. When we told him where we were headed, he said, "Wow, that's a really long drive for you guys today. Almost eight hours."...and we realized that we had totally miscalculated things because of our setback. Two themes of this trip so far are gratitude (if the innkeeper hadn't said anything, we would have ended up in a sticky situation--we're so thankful!) and flexibility!

We were able to rework things to stay a little closer last night so that we could have plenty of time to visit Carlsbad Caverns. Here are some pictures from the drive to Carlsbad:

(A lot of the driving pictures are blurry because there are SO many bugs on the windshield. You do not want to look at the front of the car right now.)

We arrived at Carlsbad Caverns around lunchtime and had a picnic in the scorching sun (I got sunburned in a matter of a half hour or less!) 

The landscape was so foreign. Oddly, it reminded me of landscapes I had seen in other extreme weather conditions, like in Denali National Park in Alaska--short, scrubby plants, very few signs of life.  I guess even different plants in different locations adapt similarly to the unfavorable conditions of rocky soil and little rain.

 The caverns incredible and our pictures can never do it justice. The cavern is so big and the lighting is so low that the camera can't begin to capture all the depth and detail. Still, we tried. We weren't able to go on any of the guided tours that would have taken us to the super secret places in the caverns, but we did the two self guided tours. We hiked down the steep grade of the natural entrance into the caverns. Here's us at the entrance to the caverns:

(PS: some of our pictures like the one above are awkward because we took them with this stick you put your camera on and hold, called a monopod. It's kind of dorky but super helpful when we both want to be in a picture and there's no one around to take it! We'll crop the photos when we print them for our albums, haha.)

At the entrance of the caverns there were probably 50 or more cave swallows darting in and out and swirling around. Again, the photos couldn't capture that, but it was a really cool sight. In the summer, thousands of bats come out of this cave every night, which we hear is quite a sight to see as well.

Inside the caverns, it is about 54 degrees all the time, so it was chilly, especially compared to the New Mexico blazing heat outside! Also, it is dead silent, except for occasional dripping water and for any sound you're making. The caverns were formed by a massive underground sea a long time ago, and the "decorations" were formed by dripping water, but most of that dripping water has dried up, so in many places literally the only sound is your breath or footsteps. The silence alone was incredible.

Here is a random sampling of the formations:

Of course, the cave is well-photographed by people much more talented than us, so go check out some photos somewhere else to better see how incredible this place is. Even better, plan to experience it some time in your lifetime. While Carlsbad Caverns is not the longest, deepest, or biggest set of caverns, it is probably the most beautiful due to all the extensive formations on the inside of it.

One of the formations was called the "Rock of Ages". In the olden days, the guide through the caverns used to stop at that formation, turn off all the lights in the caverns, then lead the tour group in the hymn "Rock of Ages". That would have been an incredible experience, in pitch black surrounded by the echoing hymn declaring the great wonders of God. Walking through the caverns you see all the intricacies and can't help but think that these things (or even just the natural processes behind them!) have to be designed, or created, not merely thrown together in the chaos of time. Creation truly declares the glory of God!

We grabbed some New Mexico specialties on the way out:

The prickly pear cactus taffy wasn't all that distinctive-tasting. The cherry cider tasted like Cheerwine without any carbonation, and the raspberry cider tasted mostly like tart raspberry juice.

We headed out of Carlsbad towards Ruidoso Downs, where we stayed last night. We stopped for dinner in Roswell, hoping to find a UFO-themed restaurant. Unfortunately, there are no specifically UFO themed restaurants, but fortunately, every restaurant and business had aliens around:

Even the street lamp globes had alien eyes painted on them! I wasn't able to catch a picture of that, though.

For dinner we stopped at a place called Billy Ray's and split a chile relleno stuffed steak. The chef writes messages on every dish.

That's pretty much it for Friday. It's getting late here so I guess I'll have to keep you in suspense for all that happened today!

Again, thanks everyone for all your thoughts/prayers/encouragement/comments. We love you and miss you all!

safe in Lordsburg, NM!

Our original plans had us going to Tucson, AZ tonight, but we've stopped two hours early in Lordsburg, NM so we can get some rest and not be driving too much after dark.

We are so thankful for everyone's love, support, and encouragement during the past few difficult days. Both Patrick's parents and my parents have been incredibly helpful and encouraging when we've had problems. We're also thankful for my uncle Aubrey today (a mechanic), who helped Patrick phone-diagnose what was going on and help us decide whether it was safe to drive or not. And we're thankful for Chris Stabler who has been consistently checking in and offering help. We have wonderful friends and family!

We ended up driving the car to Las Cruces, NM today and taking it to Sears since that's where we had the work done on Wednesday. The mechanics found several problems. One of Patrick's radiator fans is not turning on unless the A/C is also on, and it's possible that the thermostat is messed up. But the biggest problem, the mechanics think, was that the radiator cap was messed up somehow. So they replaced that and only charged us for parts, no labor, since they felt like the other Sears should have caught that. (So thankful for that too!)

Anyhow. So that's the car update. Now I'm going to write a couple posts about the fun things that we've been doing!

More car problems...

Hi friends!

Patrick and I are safe tonight in Ruidoso Downs, NM. 

Unfortunately, when we turned off the car tonight, the coolant was boiling. Obviously this means something is very wrong, especially since there was no indication of overheating on the gauges while we were driving. We can't do anything about it tonight so we'll have to figure it out in the morning.

Obviously this vacation has turned into a bit of a nightmare. We are still so thankful to be safe and together and to have everything we need. But please pray for us, because this is very stressful and scary. And pray that Patrick especially can get some sleep tonight. He didn't sleep well last night so that exhaustion combined with the stress only makes the whole thing seem worse.

Thanks, everyone, for the love, prayers, and support!