I think White Sands is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. Bright white and bright blue, as far as you can see, and the warm sand surprises you by sparkling like ice crystals. It was a hot day, and the sand felt so nice: cool and almost-damp just under the surface, perfect for burrowing your toes and your fingers into. It's gypsum sand, and it doesn't feel like sand on the West Coast beaches I've visited. It's softer, finer, and more powdery. Less clingy. More delicate. As we walked back to the car, most of the sand just fell off us in little sparkling showers (though, Sam would have me add for realism, not the sand in all the children's hair. And eyebrows. And noses. Okay, we still needed baths. But we didn't feel dirty!).
A tiny walker tries to catch up
Everyone* got buried at some point. It felt so NICE.
*(Except for this troublesome toe)
The boys made all these amazing caves and cliffs and canyons. The sand had just enough crust to it that it was susceptible to being coaxed away from underneath. It was so cool: like watching weathering and erosion happen in super-fast motion.
"The Grand Bunyon" :)
She didn't want us to carry her, I promise!
This little one was SO HAPPY here. She bumbled her way up the hills and slid on her tummy down the hills, and poured sand over her toes and head, and tasted sand, and tumbled head-over-heels every few minutes. She was so pleased with herself. Since we've been back, she's gotten into my bucket of flour in the pantry on three separate occasions, pulling it out by handfuls and getting it all over the floor and her hair and face---and she's not previously been much of a mess-maker---and I can't help wondering: is she trying to re-create White Sands? The happiest hours of her baby life? Poor little lamb.
We all got a bit sunburned (how did I forget the sunscreen?)
Explorers going off the edge of the world
Sliding
Intrepid
Tiny
Also tiny
We felt like we were the only inhabitants of some strange, shimmering white world. We wanted to stay there forever!
You should also add, for realism, that even the sand in hair, etc. wasn't very hard to wash out. Unlike other sand, which stays in your hair even after washing for days.
ReplyDeleteGood you have a content editor. Snort.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I've even been there. You put me back on the beach, though, by comparison. I've been western beaches and eastern beaches and northern ones that are rocky and gritty, and more southern ones with smoother sand. But all count as grit against this. The images are tremendous - so achingly significant on so many levels.
When Gin took the fam to the ocean, Sandy HATED the sand - hated the feel of it on his feet - but it makes total sense to me that Junie would take to it, the way you all take to wonder and new things. I think my blood line is a little more suspicious - a little more likely to choose a book and and the home couch over new things - (except for M) - a little more subject to inertia.
What an adventure. The tiny canyons the boys made - fascinating and kind of hypnotic. When I was in jr. high and we lived in KC, Mo, there was a creek behind our house that looked just the way you'd expect a giant fluvial plain to look from the sky - and had made its own tiny canyons. I'd walk it's length, not sure whether I was actually three miles up, looking down, or just a giant -