Over the Sacramento Mountains

Day 236

Our original plan was to stay in Carlsbad and explore Roswell in detail along with slowing down our jumps as the Christmas Holidays approached. Our initial plan was to stay at the Carlsbad KOA until the 18th of December before moving on. Unfortunately, the stench of the oil fields would arrive late afternoon and hang around all night. If aliens truly were visiting, I can understand why they don’t make contact, we are a destructive species that makes money by destroying our planet. 

We decided to head west, over the Sacramento Mountains to Alamogordo where we hope to escape the lovely stink. As we travelled into the mountains we came across a ski hill with patches of snow. Curious on  how New Mexico could sustain snow, we decided to look into the elevation of where we were. Surprisingly we are actually higher than Calgary. Our elevation at Carlsbad KOA was 3295 ft, similar to Calgary at 3428 ft. Our climb into the Sacramento Mountains brought us to Cloudcroft at 8675 ft, before descending to Alamogordo at 4330 ft. 

Our drive to Alamogordo was very windy throughout the trip, but I seem to be managing it a little better than I have in the past. We arrived at the Alamogordo KOA mid afternoon and began to setup. While I was setting up Lori brought my attention to a notification at the office, noting that freezing temperatures are expected for the next week and for campers to use their fresh water tanks instead of drawing from the site faucet… this should be interesting, but if we can make it across Canada in freezing temperature, this should be a cake walk. 

The scenery on the drive was amazing.