Pi Day and Happy Birthday Pat

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blog 03-14-19 Pi day and Happy Birthday Pat

We woke to the sound of nothing. The wind had stopped! Watson went outside and walked around his pen in the sun for the first time in 2 days. By 9 am it was too warm for my sweatshirt because the sun was so intense. I put Watson's fence back in the car, took him for a walk and realized I had time to go down the street and wash poor Petunia. It was a do it yourself place and I put my quarters in and soaped and brushed then rinsed and got it all done for 8 quarters. It's not the best but she sure does look better.

We finally pulled out about 11 am and headed north on 285 toward Artesia. It was much easier getting through town with the traffic lights working and in no time we were up to 65 mph. It is mostly ranch land along the way with an occasional well off in the distance. They are drilling for natural gas.

In Artesia we headed west on highway 82 after I called the highway dept to make sure the road was open because it snowed with the storm we had above 6,000 ft and the summit at Cloudcroft was over 8,000. There were no reports of trouble so off we went. There was a mountain in the distance that was very heavily covered with snow and I was sure hoping that was not the one we were going over.

It wasn't although there was snow on the ground at the highest elevations but none on the roads. They had been plowed though so yesterday would have been a bad travel day. The scenery was beautiful, going through little alpine valleys with farms, huge pine trees dusted with snow and the little ski village of Cloudcroft. Pictures

Going down the other side wasn't too steep a grade, the road wound around enough and in no time I was in the valley just south of Alamogordo heading south on rt 54. Just 7 miles later we found the park at the base of the mountain tucked in nice as you please.

This is a NM state park called Oliver Lee Memorial Park and it sports a view that goes on forever. I can see the other mountain range to the west, the entire valley between which includes White Sands Nat's Park which I hope to visit tomorrow. Pictures

We got settled, took sunset pictures, talked to some campers then settled in for the night. It's going to be a cold one, in the 30s.

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