A couple of hours east of Bosque is another naturalist and photographer destination – White Sands National Monument. The original plan was to drive down one afternoon, hike the dunes at sunset, spend the night in the nearby town of Alamogordo, and then return at sunrise to photograph the dunes in morning light. That plan came apart when the chosen morning date was accompanied by one of the periodic closings of the monument due to missile tests at the adjacent White Sands Missile Range. So, only one afternoon was spent away from the birds at Bosque, but what an afternoon it was.