written by Julie Hackler & David Fink
February 14, 1999 to February 22, 1999
White Sands NP, NM to San Diego, CA
With the idea in mind of staying south in warmer weather, we decided to head to southern California. On the way, we stopped at the White Sands
National Monument in New Mexico. It’s a beautiful sight with 275 square miles of gypsum white sand dunes surrounded by desert, not to mention the home for a government missile testing site. Safe from any missile launches we hiked the small trails and left a small sign carved in the sand "no nukes." A few hours was plenty to see it all.
From there we headed to Tucson, Arizona. We camped at the beautiful Catalina State Park just north of the city. We went to the Biosphere 2 (the earth in a small glass bubble) and spent several days hiking the Sonora Desert at the Saguaro National Park. The
cactuses were the size of trees and we encountered a small coyote. A lot of fun and very scenic, then we finally made it to San Diego. Once we crossed the state line it was like a river of sand dunes, as tall as mountains. Surrounding them were hundreds of RV’s just parked on the sand. It was an off-road vehicle paradise. Then suddenly we ran out of sand
dunes and we were greeted with crumbling boulders piled on top of one another to form small mountains. Once night began to fall the fog covered the tops of the mountains like fluffy white pillows. The scenery was unbelievable.
We decided to stay in a KOA in the center of the city to be close to the action. Since we were in Calif., I just assumed it 
would be 80° and I could lay on the beach, but it was only in the low 70°’s (not much for getting a golden tan) so we took the trolley into Tijuana, Mexico. When I say trolley, both Dave and I thought "Rice-A-Roni" and the guy hanging off the back of an old-time trolley, but it was just San Diego’s way of saying "train." Guess we have to wait until San Francisco! Tijuana was an experience, kind of like New York with a Mexican twist. The main shopping drag was on Resolution Street. Dave and I ate Mexican tacos, drank a few Corona’s and bought a picture a Mexican drew of us while we were eating. We enjoyed it, but we were happy to make it back to the States.
Big Bend NP ----------------------Jousha Tree NP
We welcome any suggestions or comments. hacklerj@mindspring.com