good morning
we are going to white sands national
park today
and it's a gloomy day right now uh kind
of cloudy but it is supposed to
get sunny later on
i could see the clouds parting a little
bit in the distance there
it's
almost nine o'clock the park actually
opens at 7am but since you know it was
cloudy this morning and drizzling a
little bit we just decided to take our
time have some breakfast
and
head out now we're excited to do some
sledding down the
little dunes there and hopefully kuma
can join us too i don't know how much
she's gonna freak out or not freak out
yeah cause it's pet friendly so we're
excited that this national park actually
allows pets a lot of national parks they
keep it pretty limited um to where you
can take your pets but this one they
didn't really have any we didn't see any
restrictions so hopefully she can come
sledding with us to get a sled you can
bring your own sled to go down these
dunes but the visitor center also
provides
sleds for a fee of course i think it was
around twenty dollars we'll find out
when we get there it's not bad yeah we
can just share anyway yeah
so it's kind of like renting a sled um
and i didn't we could have bought one
beforehand of course at like walmart or
something but i didn't want to just
carry that in our
uh car the whole time because we're
already kind of packed with all our
luggage since we are doing a
cross-country road trip she lives in
florida i live in california i mean we
we never really see snow so there's
never are we ever gonna use a sled again
yeah
so i'm totally fine with paying the fee
yeah me too i forgot how much the fee
was to get into the park but this year i
decided to get
the national annual national park pass
which is about 80 bucks
um so you know if you go to like three
or four or four or five parks probably
it'll cover the cost um and on this trip
we're going to two national parks so
i'm already like halfway there and i
figured you know what i might go to
mormon national parks or maybe this will
push me to go to more national parks and
then make up my money for that and plus
i don't mind you know giving back to the
park anyway because i do appreciate
their service and i appreciate that we
get to enjoy these parks
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turn right then the destination is on
your left oh look at this little cute
visitor center all right
so we're here uh we're gonna go to
visitor center and find out about that
sled and also i need to park my part
pass because i bought it on
riii.comrei.com
but uh they forgot to punch a hole in it
they're supposed to punch a hole
where um you know the date the month
starts but they forgot to do it so
they're like oh you can just go to any
visitor center and do it so i was like
okay i got my sled and my wax
yep
there you go so i don't wax so a used
one is 15
and then um
the wax
yeah about two bucks and so the gift
shop this is where you get this flood
it's not open until 9 a.m so i'm glad we
actually came later because we wanted to
get this first before we went inside all
right we got our sled
ready to go to the fee station so we can
punch my card because
they weren't able to do that at the
visitor center the visitor center looks
like they have like a gift shop and a
little museum and i believe you can
watch a video too yeah there was a
little video area which might be kind of
interesting
to watch
just says dogs on leash at all times
no drinking
i mean no alcohol yeah
and there's no water available so you
have to get at the visitor center if you
want water
fee is usually 25
and they gave me like this nice
tag that you can put on your car too
just hang it up
hi
thank you so i got this annual pass on
rei dot com and they forgot to punch a
hole in it
thank you
take that
it says park closes at 6 pm
so most likely what we're going to do is
check out the area right now do some
sledding
um
just kind of scope it out and i'll
probably be back at like sunset time
because we've heard that the sunset is
gorgeous around here there is
a couple a few trails
there's a dune life nature trail play a
trail inner doom boardwalk
some kind of group use area amphitheater
alcoholy
or have you say that flat trail
and then there's a camping area so it's
a fairly
small park i would say so it looks like
you kind of drive you keep going
straight um
for about six miles
if you want to keep going you can go six
miles and then
um
the loop is about looks like two miles
and then it takes you back and then you
drive back six miles so it's like go
straight and then there's like a small
loop and then you come back
i believe like once you see some
sand dunes
or like people sweating you can just
stop over anywhere and do it it says
gypsum dooms are firmer and cooler than
other types of dunes many people enjoy
sledding on these unusual dunes yeah so
i'm hoping since the sand is more dense
that it'll be easier to walk on because
when we went to valley of fire state
park
a lot of the trails were all sand and
that was really tough to walk in
they were pretty easy trails but
wow the sand made it so much harder um
yeah so it's good to wear boots so we
both wore boots pictures online i see a
lot of people they just go barefoot when
they're sledding i noticed that i
noticed them but it's like they're
wearing summer clothes okay so it's like
well i don't know if people really do
that in the winter
we're in the winter time so
there's a dune life nature i just passed
another trail right there okay so a
couple trails have passed by but i've
kind of seen like reviews of those and
they don't seem too interesting so we're
just going to keep on going yeah it does
look like snow though
i feel like we're driving through the
snow i think the more we drive the more
dramatic the landscape will get
because now it's starting to narrow in
we'll see if we're having more sand
dunes near us
oh
this is nice
oh this looks so cool
nothing i'll just
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fight okay so i think we're going to
stop here
at the alkali
flat trail area
try to go sledding here
these are uh
this is fine sand in some spots but
other spots it's like dense sand
candy's going to find a good sled spot
it's kind of flat right here
yeah i think you have to go down that
way yeah it's like a lot of work just
going up yeah doing one sled
candy's scrubbing it down with that wax
yeah
real nice and slippery
how are you doing
looks like there's a path here
i even oh you hold on the sides
yeah okay kuma you want to come on with
me she's like no i just want to play
with the sand
playing with the sand is cool
you don't want to go sweating
what's in there what are you doing
so here i go i'm going to go down this
thing if i won't even like move
more like how do i move
she gave up
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it's like it's cool it's a lot of fun
going down this
but coming up is a strong goal
[Laughter]
she loves going down running down the
hill it's so cute all right so we just
did some sledding and it was a lot of
fun but also a lot of work it is it's a
lot of work it's tiring
but a good workout it's really bright
right now so i'm having trouble seeing
like once the sun comes out all that
reflection from the white sun like hits
you right in the eyes
so good thing to have sunglasses here
some clouds came in a few times so that
was nice but it does get pretty warm yes
once you're moving around and sledding
so
actually really nice weather right now
it is i definitely don't need the coat
right now i mean even this is a little
warm right now it's like what 60
something right now i don't have my
weather up but it's probably like in the
low 60s and it feels great 62.
it feels really great right now it's
like the perfect weather for this kind
of thing so yes this is the alkali flat
trail
it says this trail is not flat
exclamation point
but it's five miles looped which is
about three hours you need to take
caution and make sure you keep track of
your landmarks just be aware
okay so we're on the alkali flats trail
now this is the one that i read about
where it's the best trail to do if you
want to get like those nice pictures or
a view of like the untouched sand the
more further down you walk the
footprints yeah that's footprints so we
got kuma with us
she
they have to be is
yes so make sure she is leashed
here she has a fancy new she has a set
now bandolier chandelier
look at this look at you fancy girl now
we're all mad jam bander yeah we all
have bandoliers they all have bandolier
look at all that
it's a lot of dunes
yeah
look over there that looks crazy where
it goes straight down
i love like the mountain view yeah
just have to make sure
you look at the landmarks see where
you're going but they have markers they
have markers throughout the trail so
make sure you keep track of that so yeah
this is definitely easier to walk
in the sand than valley of fire because
that valley of fire was very thin sand
fine sand kind of like when we're going
up to go sledding it was like that yeah
but here it's all dense it's all packed
down
so it's very easy to walk but what a
crazy view
yeah look at how cool this is i mean you
can walk forever here i feel like i mean
i see somebody like way down there
they're having some fun
it's so weird like you could really hear
what everybody's saying
yeah the echo here is unreal
it's like even when i was talking in a
low voice you could still hear me like
far away
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okay so we just walked a little bit
not even that far but
you like stay away from you can have
your own space anywhere around here
really yeah there's a lot of space and
it's all the same scenery so you know no
one's fighting for the one little spot
that's unique it's all the same so i
think that's why it's easy to spread out
and
really enjoy the views
go sledding so we see kids just like
tumbling down yeah it's a lot of fun for
the kids like i don't think i'll be
tumbling down anything but it was fun
you know definitely sledding down i
really like it here and the weather is
it's a little hot right now but the
breeze is coming right now it feels so
good it's actually perfect weather yeah
i think this is a perfect time to go i
don't know if i got lucky with the
weather though if it's normally a little
bit cooler than this this time of year
um but i think it's usually like this
for like the thanksgiving yeah november
time so i would say like this is a great
time to come to white sands yeah it's
perfect and then just bring like a one
you know one coat with you because we're
not even wearing a coat and we feel
great so great we're gonna take a break
go eat lunch in town by our hotel
and then we're gonna come back maybe
like a couple hours before sunset to
take more photos yeah and um hopefully
see a great sunset i know fingers
crossed i would love to see an amazing
sunset especially here yeah we went back
into town into
alamogordo
near our hotel and we got some food
candy got some mcdonald's i got some kfc
we just figured fast food would be the
most convenient and most fast sunset is
around i think a little after five and
it's 4 13 right now and we'll be back at
the park in nine minutes so
i think we'll make it for the sunset and
hopefully
we'll see the sunset but i'm starting to
see clouds so hopefully that's not the
case but we'll see we're going back
anyway
[Music]
a lot more cars now here
i just parked on the side
yeah now that we're back at uh sunset
time there's a lot more people
out
way more than earlier today okay so not
too many cars at the
alkali flat trail parking area and this
is where we wanted to come back to to
take some pictures and watch the sunset
are you ready miss kuma i'm gonna go
home again okay
yeah
got maggie parker girl
nice we got vip parking
right up front and we're both wearing
sneakers now
yes
because the boots are kind of brutal oh
look at this nice light
oh i do love sunset
oh man there's like nobody here
that's like kind of all to ourselves
right now
like nobody
i mean there's some people i see like
people out there but
yes maybe another couple out there
[Music]
okay
so obviously it's dark right now but
we did it we made it for the sunset um
we just had to do it
it wasn't like a spectacular sunset like
we've seen at other places but i think
it was cloudy in some places so we
probably like missed the prime time
maybe or the clouds recovering
but it was still beautiful we still saw
the golden light like the pretty
pink colors kuma is freaking out because
there's like lights in the distance
because people have lights on to
see where they're going in the dark so
yeah the park actually closed at six um
hour after sunset so everybody's making
their way back out now but um yeah it
was a great time here
really loved white sands super small
park easy to navigate
lots of photo opportunities lots of fun
sweating
and it's dog friendly yes and it does
get cooler during sunset so we won't
have jackets yeah yeah
daytime was pretty hot but nighttime you
will probably need a jacket or something
yeah so
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[Music]
[Applause]