day 5: i'm too old for this

carly and i started the day really excited about hanging out in the river. we packed up camp (in 15 whole minutes), got our suits on, and headed out. problem is, the water was -45 degrees. it was so cold that you could barley put your feet in...much less your body. so instead, we sat on the rocks and made a plan for the rest of the day.

we decided to make the drive over to white sands. the gps said that it was only 112 miles so we were excited to get there during the heat of the day and just have fun.

mr. garmin was wrong. he didn't account for the horrible new mexico road conditions, a speed limit of 60, or the mountains where death looms at every curve. 3.5 hours later the end was in sight...

we stopped at the big lookout for a couple of reasons. first, i needed to stretch out my fingers because they were white and frozen around the wheel and second, carly just needed out. we looked like true outdoorsmen with our chaco's and swimsuits on. we were ready for an adventure.

we were so excited to get to the park. i have been before and i remembered it being so fun. i didn't account for the fact that last time i went i was 12 and full of energy. boy how things have changed for me... not for carly though. she hopped out and ran up the dune with our wal-mart floats in hand.

i, on the other hand, just took a leisurely stroll because walking knee deep in sand uphill is HARD.

we took the rafts because we thought that they would be great to slide down the dunes on. they weren't. in fact they didn't move. at all. it really bummed us out. we hiked to the top so that we could slide down.

one thing that we didn't plan on was gale force winds. we were being constantly sand blasted from the top of the dunes. carly used her raft as a shelter...

while i made an attempt to lay out and catch some rays...

the wind had other ideas though. that wasn't the last time the wind would get me either.

one of the coolest things about white sands is that no matter where you are all you see is sand. sand dunes for miles. in fact, the sand is very deceptive to the eye. you think things are closer than they are and it's hard to judge how far up or down things are. i kept thinking about what would happen if you got lost or buried in the sand.

luckily that didn't happen. we had lots of fun rolling around in the sand. i'll be cleaning sand out of my ears until christmas.

here is a video of our day... (just so you know...i took off in a lot faster run than it looked like)