White Sands (in My Pants?): A National Monument au Natural

Story contributed by Fred Briggs:

White Sands is one of my favorite National Parks. I love the three-color universe there; blue sky, black mountains and ultra white sand.

A couple of years ago, I was driving alone through New Mexico, returning from visiting my brother in Texas. It was a beautiful late fall day and I pulled into White Sands for a rest stop and a little picnic lunch. There were very few people in the park, but I stopped to chat in one of the dune parking areas with a young German couple exploring America in a Volkswagen van (naturally). After a few minutes, they went one way and I followed the line of buried telephone poles out of sight into those amazing drifts. Even though the day was warm, that pure white, incredibly soft sand was wonderfully cool underfoot.

I climbed the leeward side of a huge dune and stood at the lip, looking at the the other side and thinking how great it would be to jump off and just roll ass over tin cups down the hundred feet or so of the sharp windward slope. Then the adult in me thought how much fun it would be to drive the next three hundred miles or so with sand in my underwear, and I trudged back toward the parking area.

After a few more dunes, I heard whooping and shouting ahead and thinking to say good bye to the young Germans, climbed up the next one. The kids had solved the sand in their underwear problem. Their clothes were folded neatly at the top, and they were rolling down the slope, joyfully naked. I waved and drove on, thinking that an American would never even imagine doing something that much fun.

Me and Fred, Sailing San Diego Bay

Fred Briggs is my good friend and fellow avid traveler. He has that admirable ability to experience fully every new place he visits, every dish he samples, and then to colorize the people and adventures with his gift for the written word.  I am grateful to him for sharing his stories, his friendship, his outlook and allowing me to share this, my first official guest post on my Gitana blog. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

The stunning cover photo of the horizontal rainbow was taken by Fred’s friend, Phil Noll. He describes the rare atmospheric phenomenon as a circumhorizontal arc, and he captured the rare sighting over the dramatic White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. You can find more of Phil’s photography here.