White Sands, Continued

In this post, I chatted about White Sands and how beautiful it is at sunset.  And that's true.  But it is equally beautiful during the middle of the day.  It's hard to capture in pictures the size of the dunes made by the gypsum.  This one shown below was grand.  

Even more amazing was the plants.  Quick growing plants live in this area, stretching to survive over an incoming dune. In the middle of this particular photo, you can see the two plants in the middle of the frame are half covered with the sand.

As the wind moves the sand, it makes cool patterns in the sand.  I thought this one was cool.

But as the dune moves on its way, the plant has generated a vast root system which keeps the gypsum from moving with the rest of the dune.  The sand is tangled in with the roots and prevented from moving with the breeze.  That leaves these large towers throughout the park, waiting for the nest dune to pass by.