RV McCurdy's, Brad and Diane: Carlsbad to Alamogordo

Saturday May 4, 2019

Beautiful drive down

the mountain side

We got up and headed out of Carlsbad about 10:30 in the morning. First stop is Walgreen's for Brad's prescription, then off to Artesia for Fuel and a lunch stop. What a great little town, lots of art work, shops and history, we might need to stop there again. As we were pulling out from our lunch stop there was a sign warning of steep grades and sharp curves, seemed funny in the desert. Now the elevation in Artesia is 3379 feet and we drove through part of the Chihuahuan Desert (straight and flat) heading to Alamogordo NM. After about an hour of desert travel(flat and straight) we noticed a bit of an incline and then very slowly things started to turn green and our elevation increased to 5500 feet. After that our climb increased dramatically and curves got sharper then we were in a little town called Cloudcroft at 8600

Our first view o f the

White Sands!

feet. What a difference, it is a little cooler, but everything is green and there are actually trees. We decided we'll be doing a drive back to here for a visit and some sightseeing. After that we started the descend, now it was probably about 90 miles to get this high and the downhill side is 17 miles to 4066 feet, wow what a rush, but the Moho did great. Diane so enjoyed the down hill trek with the straight down view/drop out her window. We got to the Holloman AFB, found the Famcamp and were set up by 3:30. Not a fancy campground, but it's nicely located for seeing all the sights in the area.

Sunday May 5, 2019

Oh yea, I forgot to mention, yesterday when we stopped for lunch, we had the generator running so we could run the AC. Just as I was getting ready to shut the AC off, there was a loud bang. As it

We are staying about 10 miles

south of this sign. Makes

me wonder if we're safe!!

turned out one of the 3 AC's decided crap out. So first thing this morning was a call to Brad's nephew, our HVAC guy, who thought it might have been the fan, so that'll get checked tomorrow.

We headed into Alamogordo to find a place for lunch and found a Mexican restaurant open. I had the chicken and green chili burrito and Brad had a shrimp burrito, mine actually had much better flavor. After that a google search showed that the visitors center in town was open so we headed there to get some information on the area and the sights we need to see. The lady at the visitors center was very nice and most helpful. We did make the mistake of asking how she was doing, wrong question, after 15 minutes we started to slowly back up toward the exit. phew! We made it out. We have found out in the South most things are closed on Sunday, so it was a quick trip to the Military Exchange and then the commissary just to check them out and off to home to Rudy.

Monday May 6 2019

Off to the RV dealer after breakfast to check about the a/c unit and as you would guess they really couldn't say anything until they look at it. So tomorrow we will be taking the coach in for work, appt at 9:00 AM. But we made the most of the trip, First was a stop at McGinn's Pistachio Land to taste and buy pistachios and other touristy stuff. They also had a wine tasting section which was free, we couldn't pass that up. Then off to The Heart of Desert Pistachio Farm and darn they had free wine tasting there too. It was a nice day so we got a small pizza and a glass of wine, sat on the patio and enjoyed lunch. We stopped at the mall walked around for awhile, Diane found a dress she couldn't live without and then back home. We sat outside for some time chatting then a walk for Rudy and sausages for diner.