If you were going to design picnic benches on Mars, you'd probably come up with something like this.
(White Sands National Park. Photo by Jeanne)To recap: We had arrived in New Mexico from Arizona. My friend Martha had told us that sunset at White Sands was the time to be there and so we drove all day, arriving at the park an hour before magic time. Weatherwise, it was superglued at 106ยบ.
Let me be honest.
I. Hate. Heat.
But I swear to you, when you're in White Sands, temperature loses all relevancy.
It's like you've entered some crazy cartoon world, surrounded by sixty foot mountains of granulated sugar as far as the eye can see.
The kids took off with their plastic sleds and I started snapping photos like I was David Bailey in "Blow-Up." "Over here!" "Okay -- now go for it!" "Yes, yes!" "That's it, darling!"
(Photo by Jeanne)
The sun slipped lower and suffused the landscape with ethereal reds and pinks. It was all very Sofia Coppola-ish.
But even photos don't capture the bliss of what it felt like to be there.
So hopefully this will: