To White Sands and Beyond

After a one night stay we are moving on to White Sand Missile Range Museum and National Monument.

They have really cool rest areas along Route 70 as we got close to the Missile Range.
These mountains look over the Missile Range, the snow looks good from here.

Almost there!

We were limited as to what we could take pictures of, this sign was ok to film.
Dr. Wernher von Braun was the man behind Hitler's V2 rocket.
After the end of WWII, the US acquired all the remaining V2's and their parts. Over 300 railroad cars of these items were delivered to White Sands for testing.
This is one probably the last V2 rocket in existence that's on display.
After a total restoration, sections of the skin was left off so the internals can be viewed.

These are the fuel tanks.

The V2 can carry a 2000 lb. payload in the nose located ahead of the electronics and gyros.
In the museum, there are numerous rockets and missiles.

Stinger Missile
Who owned the White Sands area?

From the Museum, we went outside to check out all the weaponry. Too many pictures to post so I tried to be selective.

Fat Man

The US version of Hitler's Buzz Bomb

Cute but lethal

See... I knew they existed!!!

Some assorted rockets / missiles

I have no idea what this is, there wasn't any info. on it.

Man-o-man, where did I put those ignition keys.

A shot of part of the area.

Our next stop was only a few miles down the road.

I know......but it's not snow, it's gypsum.

The area was huge and looked like snow drifts.

The further out you drove, the white it got. The road was 8 miles long.

This video will give you an idea of what the area looks like.

From White Sands we continued on and took 82 over the Sacramento Mountain Range. The highest elevation was approximately 8700 feet.

Even had a tunnel.

As we approached the town of Cloudcroft, you could see the old RR bridge.

More real snow but the sky was clear, yea!

We are now at Brantley Lake State Park which is located not far from Carlsbad, NM.