Alamogordo and White Sands

It has been a while since we have posted.  We were busy with family, the wedding, and plagued with poor WIFI. So, there will be a series of updates to cover our travels to Santa Fe and return.

August 16-19

After visiting the International UFO Museum, we headed to Alamogordo, NM where we plan to meet up with Keri, Elliott and kids.  The trip is up and over some mountains where we landed in the KOA.  Keri and fam arrived Saturday afternoon and we had a small party going in our spot. As the weather was very hot, there were not a lot of campers.

Chilling at our campsite.

 

Prior to their arrival, we visited Cloudcroft for lunch on Saturday. Cloudcroft is 15 miles on the road but 4000 feet higher in elevation.  It is also 20 degrees cooler.  It is a totally different climate and ecology than Alamogordo.  It has lots of trees and even a ski resort.

A tunnel on the way to Cloudcroft. On the other side it is much greener, more trees, etc.

At the tunnel stop. There are climbers going up the rock wall

Downtown Cloudcroft

Main drag. It was crowed up here.

On Sunday, we visited White Sands to show the kids the white dunes and let them saucer in the sand. The KOA was nice enough to loan us two saucers which we would have had to rent at the dunes.  While the saucer does go down the sand, it is not nearly as fast as snow. 

We left dunes at lunch time and decided to avoid the heat by returning to Cloudcroft for lunch. There is a fairly new brewery there with a neat patio, great pizza and good brews.  We also stopped on the way up to view the restored railroad trestle that was used in the late 1800's and 1900's to move passengers up to Cloudcroft to escape the heat. Cloudcroft was resort destination for people from as far as El Paso. The train was the only way up and it was a major endeavor just to build the railway.  This trestle is only one of many that had to be built.  In addition, the train had do a switchback, where it stopped, went in reverse up a ramp, and then forward up an another track to permit making the grade.  It was multi-hour grueling trip on the train just to get there. 

Restored trestle that let the train get to Cloudcroft.

We also visited a Pistachio farm. For some reason, this is big growing area for these nuts.

World's largest pistachio, so they claim

At all other times we were at the pool, cooling off.  The kids and we really enjoyed our time together at the campground. Keaton slept in the trailer with Keri, while Elly slept with her dad in a tent.  Fortunately, it cooled off enough at night so they could get some sleep. 
Tomorrow is Monday so it will be on to Santa Fe. Keri and Elliott are heading to Albuquerque to swap out rental cars. (They flew into El Paso and needed to get rid of their more expensive one way rental. )