Revisiting missed opportunities (Part 5)

The fifth day of my family's vacation was spent at Guadalupe Mountains National Park, which was in Texas, but only an hour drive away from the city of Carlsbad (New Mexico) where we spent the night. We stopped and got out of the heated car many times to take pictures in the sub-freezing temperatures. Once at the sign declaring "Welcome to Texas" and twice at the two signs informing us of our entry into the National Park. We immediately went into the visitor center, where my sisters and I were forced into doing Junior Ranger. This was by far the most difficult junior ranger program I had to do in the whole vacation. It took us 90 minutes to do it. Afterwards, we decided to do a very short 0.6 mile hike, because there apparently was not much to the park besides hiking (We were ill-prepared for the longer hikes).  I took many pictures of the frosty desert, making sure to capture a Prickly-Pear in the background to remind my future self that, yes, this is an actual desert. At noon, the fog finally cleared and we could see the park's namesake Guadalupe Mountains ... right as we were planning to leave. So, after a few photos we headed towards our hotel. At 2 we ate at a subway in El Paso. Then arrived back at White Sands National Monument at 4:15, because we were determined to revisit it. It was open, but would be closing at 5, and much to the relief of my sisters and I, we didn't have time for Junior Ranger, and instead headed into the monument, sleds in tow to sled in the white sand dunes. While the entrance is blocked out at 5 o'clock, once you get in, you don't have to get out until 6 o'clock (sunset). So, we enjoyed about 45 minutes of sledding down sand dunes, before leaving. We quickly ate in the nearby town of Alamogordo before speeding (metaphorically) to our hotel in Los Alamos. We arrived at 11:30, and I might've been asleep for part of the 4 hour slog. It was so late that we didn't have time to book the next day's hotel, and instead opted to procrastinate until the morning to do so (we still found time to mess around until about 1 o'clock).