Saguaro and White Sands National Parks

As you’ve probably guessed, we’ve moved location already. And <gasp> we’re about to move again pretty soon. That tells you how far behind I am getting a blog post out. Between being busy and a ’bout of lazy bones, I’ve been neglecting you guys.

Before we left out of Tucson, we took a trip on over to the Saguaro National Park. Now for those of you who are like I am and would go around pronouncing the word with a ‘g’ sound, I’m here to tell you, don’t do it. The ‘g’ actually is a ‘wah’ sound and should be pronounced Sa – WAH – ro. I went around g’ing it until I was told differently :-0!

Saguaro National Park

So what is the Saguaro cactus and why dedicate an entire park to them? The Saguaro is THE icon of the American Southwest! What do you envision when you think of the desert? Why the Saguaro cactus of course. And this is no ordinary cactus. It’s pretty darn neat and there’s quite a bit to learn about it.

The Saguaro cactus is native only to the Sonoran Desert.  It will live and thrive in other similar locations but this is its native habitat. It requires some love to get started in the world. It is necessary for it to have protection to grow into a mighty Saguaro. This protection comes in the form of other bushes and trees.

Without the shade and protection of a Palo Verde or Mesquite tree, it struggles to survive in the harsh desert climate. These ‘nurse’ plants provide some shelter in hot/cold weather and protection from rodents. It takes a long time for these little seedlings to grow. After 15 years of struggle, the Saguaro may only be a foot tall!

Saguaro’s are the largest cacti in the United States. Some can reach heights of over 50 feet and weigh more than 16,000 pounds! The Saguaro provides shelter for many animals. It begins with the gila woodpecker and gilded flicker which drill holes into the Saguaro. When they vacate their nests each spring, in come the elf owl and the cactus wren.

If you’d like to delve more into the Saguaro cactus or the Saguaro National Park, click on the link. The badge they earned for the Saguaro National Park is one of my favorite. But the one I love the best is the wooden badge from Yosemite. The only wood one in our collection. They’ve acquired quite a few on our journey!

White Sands National Monument

Now that we’re in Las Cruces, we were finally able to check out White Sands National Monument. This has been high on my list of ‘things I really wanted to see’. I think what makes this place so fricking amazing is how it came to be.

With boogie boards packed in the car, we headed out to White Sands. Why the boogie boards you may ask? After all, there is no water to surf on. Well, I read that you could do some sledding here, on the sands that is. We could tell we were nearing our destination when the brown sands turned to white in the distance.

We started at the visitor’s center and grabbed our Junior Ranger booklets. We then headed out in search of a picnic table so we could eat our lunch. Then the kids were off on the sands. We rented one of the sleds at the visitor center, just in case our boogie boards were a flop. And indeed they were.

If you ever go to White Sands, purchase (or better yet bring) some of the wax they have for sale. I didn’t see it until after we returned our sled. I think it would have made our boogie boards much slicker and able to glide on the sand. The other trick to the sand sledding is to pick the right hill, facing in the right direction.

So you may be wondering, as was I, how in the world did white sand end up in the middle of a brown sand desert? It started a long time ago when an ancient sea covered the current desert floor. It left gypsum deposits which were then uplifted when the San Andres Mountain rose.

As the glaciers melted, the gypsum was eroded and flowed down into the basin. Here, shallow lakes sifted the water from the gypsum to form selenite crystals. Wind and water wore these fragile crystals into sand. The strong southwest winds finally carried this white sand along, forming dunes of fine white powder.

It is such a cool phenomena and one of the largest gypsum dune fields in the world. It covers 275 square miles across the Chihuahuan Desert. It’s home to several creatures to include the bleached earless lizard, the kit fox, the Apache pocket mouse and various snakes. It also houses several plants, including the soaptree yucca, that adapt to this harsh desert climate.

I think we captured the footprints of the Apache pocket mouse

The kids had a lot of fun sledding on the ‘sand’. They didn’t want to leave but the park was almost an hour from Las Cruces so we had to head back. I would really have loved to be able to take some sunset pictures with the dunes silhouetted in the background. But alas, that wasn’t meant to be this time around.

So this is the line-up of the remainder of our journey home.

1. Balmorhea State Park, TX
2. Medina Lake, TX
3. Galveston, TX
4. New Orleans, LA
5. Montgomery, AL
6. Hilton Head Island, SC
7. Myrtle Beach, SC
8. Williamsburg, VA
9. Home Sweet Home

A few of our stops have longer distances in-between them then I’d like. Others, not so much. But I have us all lined up and ready to hit close to home by Mother’s Day weekend. And that my friends is a wrap. Until we meet again.

{HUGS} from the Crew!

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