White Sands Wipe Out!

We did get a sled. We did. So we're gonna have some fun out here on the dunes too today. Makes me miss the beach. Yeah and throughout we'll show you lots of the landscape out here and we'll tell you some really cool facts about some stuff out here at White Sands that you probably didn't know and stuff that we certainly didn't know until we looked it up. Oh White Sands, New Mexico man. I've been so excited about seeing this place and coming to hang out and I'm even more excited now because of the stuff that we've learned in the little video and then the the stuff that we looked up. It's just some very cool facts. There is supposedly some wildlife out here. Yes. So we'll talk more about that later and hopefully we'll be able to see some but we did get a sled. We did. So we're gonna have some fun out here on the dunes too today. Makes me miss the beach. Yeah and throughout we'll show you lots of the landscape out here and we'll tell you some really cool facts about some stuff out here at White Sands that you probably didn't know and stuff that we certainly didn't know until we looked it up. The first one is, spoiler alert, the sand is not white. Yes. Who knew? White Sands, the sand is not white. It's actually clear and because there's so much of it and because of the scratches on the granules it reflects the sunlight and makes it appear white but not white. Deceiving to the eye. We'll share a lot of more cool facts along the way today and hopefully get to see some cool stuff too. Yeah. Let's talk about the sand for a second. This sand is gypsum and most sand that you find like on beaches and stuff is silica. This is gypsum salt and it starts as like crystals like hard crystals. It's actually soluble which means it'll dissolve in water just like sugar or salt. Now I know what you're wondering is well if it's soluble when it rains why don't all this just disappear and like you know but what happens is the water runoff from the mountains around here runs down. It actually does solidify and then the wind breaks this stuff up as it's blown across the desert here and turns it into fine granules. The other thing is it doesn't absorb the heat like most sand that you would find at a beach. It actually reflects the heat so even when it's like over 100 degrees out here in the desert or in white sands this sand is super cool to the touch. It's actually cold in my hand right now and if you were on a beach like in Florida, Pensacola is what this sand looks like also but it's a different kind of sand so there you pick up a handful of sand that's been sitting in the sun all day it'd be very hot. You could actually walk out here barefooted even 100 plus degree weather and be fine. This is actually what it looks like before it breaks down. There's actually this is like a middle level breakdown. It starts as much harder but as it moves across it breaks down even more. So this is what it looks like before it actually breaks down into that fine powder but you can see if this if the wind just even barely moves this stuff across across itself it goes right into a fine powder as it gets blown around and moved around. Very interesting stuff. I wonder what it tastes like. Why? Because it's like soluble so I wonder if it's like... You're such a boy. Like only a boy would be like oh I wonder what it tastes like. I'm not gonna taste it. It might be poison. There's a yucca plant that we were talking about that adapts. Yucca. They adapt in a way that's crazy because like I say you can only see about eight to ten feet of it above the ground. Yeah. There's 30 to 35 feet of this plant below the ground. Yeah. Well the crazy part is is these dunes move every so many years. They say they move like 12 to 15 feet a year. Yeah. So in in less than a year this part of the desert could be gone and could be you know 20-30 feet lower than what it is right now. And what happens is when all that moves out this big stem of the yucca plant has no sand to support it and it just crumbles over and just falls over and dies. And then new ones are born where the new dunes are at. Yeah. Circle of life. It's a rough life. It's a lot of adapting. Yeah. All right let's go sledding. Okay. Well time to do some sledding. First you gotta wax up. Wax on. Wax off. I don't know how much you need. She didn't really say. I think you just gotta like cover the parts that are already scuffed to fill in the scuff marks. It says like every two to three sleds you should re-wax. Oh okay. I don't want it to turn into like a Chevy Chase moment when he eats too much and he's shot. I don't know if I should go sliding off down a hill with nothing between my brain and the ground on a piece of government plastic. Yeah I wouldn't recommend that. I think we found the perfect hill. Looks like it's probably what 30 feet maybe. Yeah. 30-35 feet up. Yeah. It's pretty tall. I'm sure it's taller once you get up there. Yeah. You gonna go first or you want me to go first? It doesn't matter. All right. You need me to be the guinea pig? Sure. All right you take the GoPro with you. Okay. Get it from your first person's perspective. Okay. I'll get you from down here and if you fall that'll be even funnier. Thanks. Love you too. That's steep. It didn't look like it from down there. All right children don't try this at home. This is the head first launch. Jesus. This is so stupid. Should never do this. All right here we go. Oh that was fun. Yeah. Definitely worth it. It's a workout going walking up that hill. It is. And back down every time. We survived it and we had a good time. I don't know if you heard or not I don't know if I was filming at the time but there's something that you said that blew my mind. Yeah. Married 22 years. Been together 27 years. Yeah. And that was the first time you've heard that? Yeah. Wow. Okay. So I have never sled in my life. Ever. Ever. Now give me some credit. I grew up in Orlando Florida. Yeah. Not a big sledding opportunity. I grew up Missouri so we sled all the time. Well every time it snowed. But even though we have lived places now that had plenty of snow. I remember taking Lauren's sled in Germany. Did you never sled? I did not go. No. Oh man. I skied once and that's when we went to the the resort. Yeah. And we did it for like five minutes and we said bump this. Yeah. This sucks. They did have sledding there. We didn't sled there. No we didn't That's crazy. Y'all just witnessed Leslie's first ever sled attempt which was quite successful I might add. Yeah. It was pretty good. It was fun. It was fun. Yeah. It's a lot of work to keep going back up though. It is. Like I said we went over to the lower part to actually walk up. To walk it up. They're still walking up probably 10 foot of uh uh embankment there of dune. Gliding sand. Yeah. And it's hard because you got no traction. It's just all powdery sand. It gets a little easier if stay in the footprints from before. Yeah. Then it gets a little better. But lots of fun. If you come out here to White Sands. Yeah. Get you a sled. Do the sledding. Um we bought a used one. Yeah. Which was only like 16. Yeah. 16 bucks after taxes and everything. You can return it after you're done with it. They'll give you a free little koozie. So we'll get a koozie out of the deal unless we decide to keep it. Yeah. I mean you never know where we might get the opportunity again. Yeah. Or if you're feeling adventurous I can just drive you around a parking lot and drag you around somewhere. I don't think that sounds fun. Sounds fun to me. Yeah I bet it does. All right let's go see the rest of White Sands man. All right. All right. Well we haven't seen any wildlife yet. No. I think it's maybe too cold. Yeah. But there is a lot of wildlife out here. Over 800 species of animal out here in White Sands. And um what one of the one things that you were saying was very interesting was how they've adapted. Yeah. Gone from like the lizards. Yeah. From the normal dark brown lizard is now snow white. Yeah. That's insane. They explained it a little bit in the film. They said that you know back when this first formed all the darker lizards would be eaten by predators. Yes. And then of course the lighter ones would survive and procreate. And those were breeding more and more. As they bred they just got lighter and lighter. Along with everything else out here. All the mice are lighter. The moth. The bugs. Everything's whiter out here. Grasshoppers. Yeah. They're all white. And if you go even you know 15 miles from here out in the brushland of New Mexico all those species are dark. Yeah. You come into White Sands and they're all very light. I would love to see one. Another cool thing was that there was African antelope that were released out here in the 60s and 70s. They only released 34 of them. Yeah. But now there's over 3,000 of those guys around here. And of course they're probably you only get to drive through a very small portion of the National Park. So these guys are probably out there where there's not a lot of people. Not a lot of dogs. People bring their dogs out here. Yeah. So but so far very cool. Hopefully we'll get to see some some wildlife. Maybe we'll stop again to try to get a little bit further off the beaten path and see if we can at least see something. Yeah. I just know it's going to be hard this time of year. They're dormant really. Difficult. Yeah. But interesting stuff and how they've evolved. Yeah it is. Definitely recommend. Yeah. To come to White Sands. Free. For now. And I don't know if it's just because it's winter. Yeah. Just low staff and they can't navigate. Maybe. And only a few dollars to rent a sled. So all in all pretty inexpensive day. Yeah. And we had a lot of fun. Um that's it right? For here? Yeah. Yes. For White Yeah. So we went and we did the pistachios. And then we uh and now we're at White Sands. We're only here for three total days. So two of the three days we got to do something. So that's good. Good placement. And now we're headed out of New Mexico into Texas. Yes. Again. We officially hit the Texas border tomorrow. Yeah. Scott would love it out here you think? Oh yes. Yeah. I mean he would. I would not with him. He'd be trying to eat sand. He would eat the sand. That's not good for him. Yeah. Anyway. He would have fun on the dunes for sure. Yeah. It is beautiful out here. Scenic in every direction. Good for photography if you're into that. Yeah. But um anyway we're out of here. We uh hope you enjoyed coming with us. Yes. Hope you enjoyed uh hanging out with us today at White Sands. And um stick around for a few seconds. We're going to honor a fallen hero. If you want to get involved with helping us help veterans out on the road everything you need to know is down in the description of the video. Thanks for watching. See you next time. Bye.