Diary for Harry and Judy's RV Trip


Day 9-Carlsbad to Alamogordo, NM

2011-04-25

Got up early again, smoke is gone, very windy, almost like pre-hurricane wind in CT.  Started driving up route 285 and all we saw was flat sagebrush, then only dried grasses, absolutely nothing around for miles.  Saw a mini tornado amidst all the dirt blowing all over.  As we got closer to Roswell we started seeing some small farms, some alfalpha growing although with the dry dusty weather I don't know how they grow anything.

Spent about 2 hours in Roswell at the Int'l. UFO Museum an Research Center-it mainly focuses on the events in 1947 when a farmer found metal on his farm and the gov't. tried to cover it up, but it's got lots of other stuff too.

From there we headed west and south again and the mountains started to appear on the horizon.  First we saw Capitan mountain and then were in the middle of the Lincoln National Forest.  It was gorgeous.  Drove down the Billy the Kid Scenic Byway through Ruidoso Downs, where they have quarterhorse and thoroughbred races, saw the Hubbard Museum of the American West and drove through the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation.  This is also where the original Smokey the Bear started. I think this is the Sacramento Mountain Range, up and down, through barren brush mountains and then up into pine and fir forests.  Really beautiful, again the pictures don't do it justice.

Didn't get as far as we had originally planned but, oh well.  Stopped about 3:30 at a great campground, almost empty, we have the place to ourselves.  Across the street is a winery and pistachio and pecan grower with a statue of the biggest pistachio in the world.  We walked across the streee to taste the nuts and wine and I left my ID in the camp.  Would you believe the lady not only wouldn't let me have a taste, she wouldn't let me taste Harry's.  They must have some tough laws here and I must look like an inspector.  They must have had about 25 different kinds of flavored pecans and pistachios and pistachio wine which she said was a Zinfandel flavored with pistachios but, again, I couldn't taste it.

Great cat at the campground, Shadow, who lets everybody pet him.  Did some laundry, and watched a magnificent sunset.  The mountains are all around us.  Supposed to go down in the 40s tonight.

So, we went from harsh, barren, dusty, dry desolate New Mexico to mountainous, green, woodsy, still windy New Mexico.  The aliens didn't abduct us, the apaches didn't scalp us and I'm now gonna go star gaze.