Things to do with family in New Mexico - Part 1

After our amazing ski experience at Cloudcroft, we explored a few national, state parks and few city centers in New Mexico. These are the things we do with kids in New Mexico, part one.

White Sands National Park

We drove to Alamogordo where the White Sands National Park located. We have previously been to this place about four and half years ago. Gege has been collecting national park badge and wanted to visit this park again. Due to the holiday season, there were more people visiting the park. The park is huge and in no time we found a spot to park.

The view was as beautiful and astounding as before. Someone was flying kite. We walked on the soft white sand and kids started to find a steep slope for sand sledding.

The kids have just been sledding recently at Monahans Sandhills State Park. These guys were pretty experience by now. We borrowed the sleds from the motel (see our review here), and the kids waxxed it good to make it slide really fast!

They found a good spot. Kids love the sands and could make any sort of fun out of it. They made sand slide, improvise them and all sort of stuff. This time, they slided pretty fast. In their word, super fast!

The kids gave it a double thumbs up!

We also went to another dune place and it was beautiful. As it was approaching sunset, the color of the sky changes into amazing color. The adults enjoyed the view while the kids continued to play sands and slide.

See the color of the cloud changes from orange, to purple, to gray within an hour during sunset. So dynamic and beautiful.

White Sand National Park, must visit during sunset!

McGinn's Pistachio Tree Ranch

McGinn's Pistachio Tree Ranch claimed with the world largest pistachio is located near Alamogordo. We visited this place a few years ago and toured the farm. Unfortunately the store was still closed at the time we visited and it wasn't much to see at the farm during winter. More details could be found in our previous post.

Petrolyph National Monument

After a quick stop at Pistachio land, we drove about 3 and half hours to Petrolyph National Monument visitor center. From the ranger, there is no trail at the visitor center but there are trails at 3 nearby canyons. Boca Negra Canyon, Rinconada Canyon and Piedras Marcadas Canyon.

Rinconada Canyon is the nearest to the visitor center with a 2.2 miles loop trail.

We went to Boca Negra Canyon as we were told that it is a short walk with 100 of petroglyphs. This is the only fully developed area with restroom facilities, shade, and a drinking fountain.

It was a pretty good easy hike with lots of petroglyphs to see. The view from the top of the hill was beautiful as well.

AFter that we headed to Piedras Marcadas Canyon. This is located next to residential area and for us, it feels more like a community park. There wasn't much climbing and a fairly easy walk. It is 1.5 miles loop on an unpaved trail. Lots of petroglyphs to see as well. This trail is open daily from sunrise to sunset.

Old Town Albuquerque

Next we drove to old town albuquerque plaza and strolled around. There were multiple stores but some were closed perhaps it was during Christmas holiday. The plaza was decorated with beautiful Christmas lights and traditional native arts. The merchandices in the gift shop are pretty but very expensive in our opinion.