Chewing on Sand

Monahans Sandhills State Park

Standing on top of a sand dune in a windstorm is a terrible and wonderful experience. Sand blows into your face and you find yourself eating sand, breathing sand, and crying sand. Still, the sensation of watching wind is amazing. The wind blows across the dune in waves, picking up the sand as it blows. In some cases the moving sand looks ghostly as it blows over the dunes. In other cases you feel you are being taken away in a sea of sand.

On a day without wind, this place might be filled with children riding the dunes. They rent snow sleds at the park headquarters. One group of children was here today, but for the most part we have the place to ourselves. And when standing on the dunes, you feel no one has ever been here before. Before you can pick the sand out of your nostrils, you look behind you and your footprints have been erased by the wind.

Walking around the dunes last night, Adolfo and I spotted several spots that looked like they would make good slides. We decided we couldn't miss the fun, so today I got a sled. We headed up a tall dune, and before I knew it the wind caught the sled and took it over two more dunes. I got a great work out running after it, but Adolfo was the hero. He caught it before it blew all the way to Odessa. We had a blast sliding down the dunes, but it didn't last long. It was hard work fighting the sand showers and lugging my fat ass back up those tall dunes. After a short while we trudged back to the campsite and emptied a dune of sand out of our shoes before going into the trailer.

I suppose tomorrow before we leave I will swallow more sand, laugh about it, and watch some more waves of wind before we take off for our next stop.