Highway (82) to Heaven

Friday, Feb 10

Travel day, heading east to Carlsbad – and a laundromat. Ugh. 

We left Alamagordo via Hwy 82, crossing the Sacramento Mts and (simultaneously) passing thru Lincoln Nat’l Forest. What a beautiful drive. We crested the range at the town of Cloudcroft (el 8668’ - our highest yet) and coasted (not literally) down past well maintained homes, some anchoring small ranches or farms, others just very inviting. And, especially climbing, we were surrounded by trees, not cactus! Coming down, we paralleled the path of a glittering creek that eventually flowed into the Rio Peñasco (apparently very popular among fly-fishers, but it’s catch-and-release only). Aside from the fact that we’d never ever see any of our family again, this area would be a great retirement spot.

Starting the climb through serious rock.

Very short tunnel. 😃

Snow...

and trees!

Grasshoppers near Artesia.

After that stunning beginning, the rest of the drive was pretty darn boring. One town that did get my interest (momentarily, at least) was Artesia, so named after the discovery in 1903 of an artesian aquifer that allowed agriculture to flourish for about 20 years. As we passed thru, though, we noted several small oil rigs (grasshopper pumps), so that’s apparently another resource. Neat, clean little town.

Carlsbad (which, FYI, is not where the caverns actually are) is an okay little town (w/ a relatively non-threatening laundromat), but the Elks Club RV parking area consists of one square post w/ electric hook-ups on each side (total of 4 “sites”). Very few trees, and the temp was in the 80s when we arrived. Fortunately, our AC works just fine. The Pecos River flows through the town – I hope we make it to the Riverpark before we leave on Sunday.

BlogThoughts… The climb to Cloudcroft was heavily treed, steep and curvy – even in the MH, Greg loved driving it. Coming down I kept calling the surrounding area “this valley.” And it was a valley, but looking at a detailed map today I counted 14 named canyons bordering the highway. Because I love to collect names, I’ll share these with you: Pumphouse, Sullivan, Orr, Young, Slough, Dry, Hyatt, Cotton, Pew, Eightmile (sic), Threemile, Myers, James, and Three L.