No, that is not snow. For those of you who have never been there, this is White Sands National Monument. Ian and I had just got off the boardwalk and decided to roll on over into some deep sand. Never would of come close with the old chair. In fact, I'd probably be sitting in the car watching. The boardwalk was cool. Goes out over the sand a couple hundred feet allowing those with impaired mobility a sense of what it is like out on the dunes. Gotta warn you, if you go out on the boardwalk in a chair be prepared for static shock. The " boards " are actually a hard reinforced plastic that appear to be in 10 foot assembled sections. Where to sections attach a metal strip covers the joint and prevents folks from tripping. My wheelchair built up static charges rolling on the boards and than would discharge them when I crossed the metal strip. Every 10 feet I got zapped by a slight static charge. I did not notice, but it does warn about the shocking experience on the sign at the start of the boardwalk.

I did drive up partially on one of the Dunes but the angle was steep enough that I was concerned about tipping backwards. I've got it on video, I'll try to post it here as soon as I figure it out. Ian had a blast sledding on the sand.

From the hot hot hot White Sands we moved up the mountain side to Cloudcroft. We are seriously considering a move up here mainly because of the cooler temperatures being high desert. And I do mean cooler! While it was well over 90 degrees at White Sands, Cloudcroft had barely broken 70 in the shade. We really enjoy Cloudcroft. It is very green, with lots of trees. Having lived in places like Vermont and Oregon than moving to the desert, we sure missed the green landscape.

This trail was supposed to lead to the old Trestle Railroad bridge. Unfortunately, it wasn't the correct trail. I guess following the signs wasn't the best plan. :) We got into the woods about a mile and a half when we came across a big old tree root that ran across the trail. in the uphill side of the root it was an easy roll over. However directly behind the root on the downhill side was an 8" drop off. The chair is rated for 6" although I probably could of handled it. We thought of using some of the numerous rocks in the area to build up a " step " behind the root. But my wife checked down the trail and found that the forest service folks had blocked it off. So we turned around and headed back up the trail.

At the top we found the correct trail, got about 1/2 way down before it started raining. We had to turn back and shelter at the rangers station for a little whle. We met a couple of guys from Germany stationed at Hollowman Air Base with the German airforce. They were taking pictures of these 4 fun loving humming birds that were going to town at the humming bird feeders someone had setup. By the time the rains had stopped it was late so we opted to do the Trestle trail on another trip.

Our day ended at the ice cream store. Than it was back to the hot brown desert.

Well we still need to pay for the chair, but I've been very impressed with my new extended range..........................