Land of Enchantment

We left Tucson one week ago, heading east to New Mexico. Our first night was spent in Rockhound State Park, which is unique in that they encourage visitors to forage for geodes, "thunder eggs", and other gems. You can take up to 15 lbs of rocks with you. Craig and I met a couple of fellow seasonal biologists there - a rare occurrence - who were equally as happy to see young, like-minded people. The next day, we spent all morning in the sun, digging through a wash on the mountainside, searching for the perfect geode. Craig had more luck than I did, and we left with some sparkly little rocks.


























We continued east to White Sands National Monument, which is famous for its white sand dunes. The sand is actually more salt-like. It's made primarily from gypsum crystals (calcium sulfate, if you please). White Sands is smack in the middle of the Chihuahuan desert, at the southern edge of a military missile test site (we were told to "stay away from any missile fragments" were we to come across them). As the mountains weather, the gypsum flows into White Sands, dissolved in rainwater. Because it's so dry, the gypsum quickly forms evaporative crystals, which break down into fine gypsum sand, which is blown into dunes.














We camped out on the dunes for a night, letting Fatty off of his leash to romp around. Quickly tiring of the heat and lack of smells (almost nothing lives in the dunes), he took to eating the gypsum sand. Because it tastes like, you know, salt. All was fine until the middle of the night, when the wind picked up, and Fatty kept whining to go outside of the tent into the interminable dark. It was a really long night.














The next day, on our drive to Carlsbad Caverns, we figured out why he was acting so strange. When he got all panty and bug-eyed, and then proceeded to get the runs in the backseat of the car. So after two days of that, we called poison control, looked for a vet in west Texas on a Sunday, and consulted the never-wrong internet. And, of course, he turned out fine without doing anything.