Escape to the Mountains: Evening at White Sands

OK, I admit it, I love White Sands.  Seriously.  LOVE.  IT.  And I had the most grandiose plans of taking the Piglet's 5 y.o. pics at White Sands in a sweet little sherbet colored dress with her hand-painted Japanese parasol.  Oh the pics were beyond amazing... in my head.  Mother Nature, as it turns out, had different plans!  We arrived late afternoon and it was still too hot and too bright to take good photos.  White Sands is one of those places that you have to get early morning or sunset pics or everyone is over-exposed and squinty.  It really is very bright there in full sun!  So we just pulled out the saucers and let the kids and dogs run free and wild, hoping that the sunset would be awesome and I'd get some great pics of a little freckle-nosed girl.  As things started to cool down, I set off with the camera to just shoot scenery.  The big, puffy white clouds were awesome!

My feet are always happy and well-exfoliated at White Sands!  ;)

The kids were enjoying sledding the dunes.

In case you're wondering, they heavier the saucer is, the faster it sleds down the dunes, hence the bucketful of sand all over my kid!  Big Daddy snapped a quick pic with my girlie!  I kinda love her!

It was the dogs, however, that REALLY enjoyed White Sands with the complete and total reckless abandon that only a dog can understand!   And they're off!

Well hello Roddy!

And yes, Nigel too!

He got hot though, and Big Daddy had discovered that the sand under the surface was damp and cool.  I have NEVER seen a dog that was even remotely OK with getting buried in the sand.  But he LOVED it!

Roddy got hot too, but he wouldn't let us bury him, so he just panted...

and PANTED!

They finally mellowed out just as the storm started rolling in.

Can you see the rain in the background?  So awesome!  I have to admit, it was a bit of a pisser to have our evening cut short, not to mention the fact that glorious photos of the girl were not to be, but hey, New Mexico has been hit by this drought as bad as Texas and I was beyond thrilled to see the lightning and smell the rain!  It finally started raining, COLD, life giving rain right as we were piling in the car.  It was beautiful!  So I forgave Mother Nature for screwing up my photo shoot!  Besides, we all had fun playing in the sand and that's really what it was all about anyway!  I hear that October is the best time to visit White Sands, so I think next year we'll plan a dual trip to take in Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque then head to Ruidoso for a week to enjoy fall in the mountains!  Counting the days baby, counting the days!