road trippin' up to NV

I left Austin, TX on March 8^th to drive to Reno, NV then to the Virginia Mountains field station near Doyle, CA for my sage-grouse orientation and training. The journey was slightly more than 2,100 miles and took about three days of constant driving. To break up the monotony of the open road I planned several stops along the way to visit several landmarks and parks.

On the first day I took a detour near Balmorhea to stop by the McDonalds Observatory. I had also wanted to visit the state park and see the Balmorhea spring but was constrained by time and opted to see the telescopes instead, perhaps I’ll have time on the return trip. The McDonalds observatory is located on the Davis Mountain ranges in West Texas. I enjoyed looking at the peaks and valleys of west Texas as I drove through, it’s much different from the flat plains of east Texas which I have been accustomed to. Sadly, I missed the last tour of the Observatory but I did the self-guided tour around the visitor’s center and checked out the 5^th largest telescope in the world. The beautiful landscape and the impressive telescope around the area made the two hour long detour entirely worth it. (Uncle Tee if you are reading this, I totally want to visit you at the Hawaii Observatory soon now!)

Mesas

Telescope lens

Fifth largest telescope in the world

After spending the night in Las Cruces, NM I took off early that morning to visit White Sands National Monument towards Alamogordo. Due to its location near the White Sands missile testing range I checked the park website early that morning to make sure that the park was open that weekend. I arrived at the park early and was unable to rent a sled to ride down the sand dunes instead I decided hike up and run down some of the larger white sand dunes which was probably just as fun. It was against park rules to collect any of the white gypsum sand but I consider the sands in my socks and shoes were negligible.

Grassland/ sand dunes

Beautiful dunes

Perhaps a knit fox path

Yucca

Afterwards I made an unplanned stop at Valley of Fires recreation area to check out some prehistoric lava flows. Because I was running behind on my driving schedule I had to run down the switchbacks to get to the lava rocks, took some quick pictures and chit chatted with a old lady about birds before leaving. I really wanted to stay longer and walk some of the trails. The park looked awesome! Who would’ve thought there would be lava flows in NM?! I definitely want to go back and check out this little treasure.

 

It was a very large park

  cont.