Day 12 (Sun, 24 Feb)

Awesome riding and scenery day today!!  Lot’s of pictures below.  This time I’ve included comments spread throughout the pictures, since I’ve included more picts than in prior posts.

I rode from Las Cruces, NM to Alamogordo, NM today.  The ride was 77 miles with 3,000 feet of climbing.  The 3^rd solid mountain stage of the trip.  I had one long (about 15 miles) climb out of Las Cruces over the Organ and San Andres Mountains and then the remainder of the ride was pretty flat.  Once out of Las Cruces the ride was entirely on US Hwy 70 (my old friend in AZ and NM).   The wind was light in the morning and then picked up in the afternoon – by the time I reached the summit at in the Organ Mtns, the wind was easily 20 mph+ and I think at many points for the rest of the afternoon it was around 30 mph.  Many times I was riding with a cross wind and at those wind speeds I had plenty of opportunity to practice tilting my bike left and into the wind to stay upright going over and down the mountain pass and then across the plains into Alamogordo.   The day was primarily overcast and while it ended up being dry for me, there was significant rain and snow in the surrounding mountains during the day…  Temperatures throughout the day were cooler – primarily in the 40s.

Highlights of the day included seeing: a) the Organ and San Andres Mountains, b) the White Sands Missile Range, which is the largest military installation in the US (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Sands_Missile_Range) with a ton of our Aerospace History embedded in its work over the past 60+ yrs, c) the White Sands National Monument (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Sands_National_Monument), d) Holloman Air Force Base where I did some work when I was in the USAF – the F-117 stealth fighters were once stationed here before they were retired a few yrs ago and now the F-22 stealth fighter is stationed at Holloman! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holloman_Air_Force_Base and http://www.holloman.af.mil/library/factsheets/index.asp ). 

Finally, while I was at the White Sands Visitor Center, I had a very special conversation with a family from North Carolina.  They are doing a circuit throughout all 48 CONUS states in their RV, and are sponsoring numerous activities related to donating books to children in need.  A great family and a great cause – I truly enjoyed meeting them and hearing a bit about their journey.  Their website is here: http://gumptrip.com.  A cool thing you can do at this National Park is rent sleds and slide down the sand dunes, and they were on their way to do that!

Organ Mountains as I left Las Cruces.

NASA museum dedicated to NASA activities at White Sands (http://www.nasa.gov/centers/wstf/about/index.html):

Still climbing up the mountain pass in Organ Mountains (and looking for a reason to take a 1 minute break...)

 Still climbing...  This shot looking back towards Las Cruces.

Made it to the top.  Very windy, but I put my coat back on before the 2k ft descent.

Monument dedicated to US Army missile achievements at White Sands.

Basically this entire valley is the White Sands Missile Range, so nice that they let you know that you're going into an active test area!

That is the main facility for White Sands Missile Range, just on the East side of the Organ Mountains.

East side of the Organ Mountains - snow...

White Sands, sand, starting to encroach on US Hwy 70.

All of the following pictures are from within the White Sands National Monument (I did about a 10 mile loop through the park).  Lot's of white, blowing sand today.  The Park Ranger at the entrance asked me why I was out riding my bike on such a miserably windy day!

Updated Map of the trip!!

Short video I took in the national park (click on it to open/play it).