Highway 70, New Mexico

This year we decided to take a road trip to Atlanta to catch the four states in the middle of the country we were missing on our map.

*Red is traveling east, blue is traveling west, alternating means we've driven both directions

First up, on the way to Amarillo, we decided to hop off I-10 at Las Cruces and swing through the southern part of White Sands Missile Range since we caught the top part when we went to Trinity. On the agenda: San Augustin Pass and White Sands National Park. 

San Augustin Pass is a beautiful overlook just west of the missile range. It's the terminus of the San Andreas mountains with a curious mix of desert and grasslands. It has a surreal, lost look in infrared and looks way more expansive in person than in the pics. Stunning area.

From San Augustin we made our way to White Sands National Park. What a WILD place!! The sand is made of pure gypsum crystals, so it felt like sandpaper on your face when the wind kicked up - and it was pretty windy! In fact, the windy photos in IR were giving me vintage 127 film vibes. 

White Sands is honestly the craziest place - blazing, blinding sun, fierce wind gusts, and hot AF...but the sand was totally cool to the touch! Bizarro. It's the most challenging location I have ever photographed in infrared. Extremely hard to see using the screen or viewfinder and my kit with the 820nm filter was working overtime to manage all that light. I'd like to go back and try again, but I'll need to do more homework on how to get the ISO right and check in with other photographers to find the most scenic spots on the trails. I really love the sparse vastness of the place though. It's so, so beautiful. 

Next up: Kitsch in Roswell and on Route 66!