After a long day of driving, we pulled into a beautiful campsite nestled in the mountains near Alamogordo, New Mexico. Stephen and I were tired but now we had a few days to relax and explore some hiking trails in White Sands National Park.

As I hopped out of the car, swarms of black flies and biting gnats attacked me. Yikes…this was bad.

Then I opened the Vistabule refrigerator and discovered that our bumpy ride had cracked all the eggs. What a mess!

While Stephen swatted the flies, I cleaned the sticky mess and seriously considered packing up.

Then, our camping neighbors dropped by and invited us to dinner.

Thank you Chuck and Jean for saving the day.

The next morning we visited White Sands National Park. I snapped a photo of the park sign and we headed to the nature trail. The sand was milky white and felt so soft but the temperatures were soaring. We had hats and lots of water but quickly realized it was too hot for us to hike any significant distance. It would not be safe and we didn’t want to repeat last year’s hike in the Oregon Sand Dunes.

This is not the day we planned and I’m certain that Stephen bore the brunt of my lousy mood.

When the weather is difficult, our default plan has always been a trip to the local public library. We found one with air conditioning and a comfortable couch.

Too bad the computers and internet crashed as we walked through the door.

Tomorrow we head for Silver City, NM. I hope the flies don’t follow us.