UPDATE #2: My Mom just called. They are safely back home in Arizona. My Mom confirmed that both photos below, sent from their cell phone, were sent from White Sands. However, my Mom also said that another picture was sent, when they were at a high mountain pass, above 6,000 feet elevation, with snow falling, skies gray, snow covering the road. I didn't get that picture. Hence the confusion below.
UPDATE #1: There is a chance I made an error, below, where I say both the pictures from my Mom & Dad's cell phone were of White Sands. I talked to my sister in Phoenix today and she claims she was told the first photo is of snow Mom & Dad saw in New Mexico. My sister told me you can tell the photos were taken in different locations due to the sky being gray in the snow picture. Both skies look blue to me. I stand by my original claim that both pictures were taken at White Sands. Though it did strike me as odd that they would send two of the same thing.
This afternoon, when I got home from hiking and barely in to the making lunch process, I heard my phone make an odd noise. It was caused by my Mom & Dad sending me a phone photo.
Eventually I figured out how to look at the photos. I'm thinking most people looking at these phone photos would assume they are looking at snow. I'm pretty sure that would be a wrong assumption.
It appears to me they are at White Sands National Monument. I don't believe any of my siblings, who got the same photo, have been to White Sands. So, they'll likely think it is snow they are looking at. Unless my Dad tells them different, with that fancy text messaging thing he does.
Somewhere in here I have a picture of me running down one of the White Sands dunes. The sand is so brightly white it is more blinding than snow on a clear blue day. Okay, I could not
find the picture of me running down the White Sands dune, but I did find one of my bright white van sitting on the bright white sand. Another of my pictures of White Sands shows the same type railing fence that is in the one from my Mom and Dad, above on the right.
I saw White Sands the day after spending the night at Alamogordo. I enjoyed Alamogordo. That town has played a big role in the American space program and the atom bomb. Holloman Air Force Base and White Sands Missile Range are nearby. The Space Shuttle has landed at White Sands. The New Mexico Museum of Space History with its International Space Hall of Fame is in Alamogordo.
The day I was there they were inducting either an astronaut or a cosmonaut into the Hall of Fame. Maybe it was one of each. The museum has a very good Omnivision Theater, or whatever it is called, you know, the things with the huge screen. They were showing a movie of life aboard the International Space Station. It was like you were in it.
Yesterday I mentioned that Mom & Dad were going to Tombstone. I mentioned accidentally being in Tombstone during Helldorado Days. I also mentioned how disconcerting Helldorado Days was, with guns being fired, very loudly, and
floats in the parade having girls in bikinis, which seemed so not like the Old Wild West of my imagination. They should have been attired like wild saloon girls, instead.
When I was looking for a picture of me running down a White Sands dune I found one of the aforementioned Tombstone Helldorado Days float with bikini girls. I guess it was very patriotic.
