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From Carlsbad Caverns, I was headed to Demming, NM - nothing special there, but it was too far for me to drive all the way to Tucson in one day.
My GPS sent me South, through El Paso, but someone at the little grocery store in Carlsbad told me that it was much prettier to go north, crossing a mountain
range at Cloudcroft. Well, with that name, how could I resist? And it was a pretty drive, though a lot of climbing! When I got to the top of the pass,
I stopped at a little town, looking for some food and rest. The store there had some beautiful jewelry, made my local Native Americans - and there was
a lapis necklace that I would've bought if I had had an extra $170 :-) Oh well.
The little restaurant was very friendly. I'd had a bit of a stomach bug, so I really needed very plain food. She accommodated, and even sold me some apples and oranges from the kitchen. I was feeling grody enough to consider staying at a nearby campground for the night, but decided to push on. As promised, there was a point at which I felt I had reached the top of a cliff and was about the go sliding down to the far-below floor. Very impressive. The Rancho Lobo RV Park was way off the beaten track - 2 or 3 miles of gravel road, through pasture land - but the folks were very friendly and I slept really well. The next day I took time to wash clothes and do my federal taxes, at a government web site that charged $0! What a deal! And I was happy to find that I am, indeed, getting significant money back, due to the weird withholding on my last big paycheck... By the time I'd finished all that, I didn't want to take time to visit the only landmark I'd found in Demming: the "sliver spike" where two railways met. Oh well. Next time :-) |
The road engineers were very worried about this steep downgrade. This sign was posted very 20 miles or so for 120 miles before I got to Cloudcroft. |
And indeed, the drive felt a bit trecherous. My response was to simply take my time. |
I liked the 50's feel of this sign. It came right after a little tunnel, so I stopped to take pictures. |
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And, as usual, had to get one with the moon showing. |
Nice vista, eh? |
It almost looks constructed, the layers are so regular. |
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Then I drove on down the mountain and across the plains a bit, to find yet another mountain range. |
This one seemed so abrupt: from flat the steep without the nice rolling hills in between. |
And then the edges got sharper. It made for a nice horizon towards which to drive. |
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