April 4 – Into New Mexico

Our goal for the day is to reach Cloudcroft, New Mexico high in the mountains well above 9,000 feet. The off-duty campground host at Fort Davis State Park recommended a few National Forest campgrounds outside of Cloudcroft.

Heading north from Fort Davis the road climbs slightly into flat dry desert. A lot like what we saw yesterday. Once we get north of Interstate 10 we get into oil boom country reminding us of traveling in western North Dakota last year on our way to Alaska. The oil boom here is considerably larger than western North Dakota. Soon we are passing pumping oil wells, pipeline construction along with construction and oil field related trucks. We pass many RV parks that are anything but recreation and parks. They house the oil field workers. It’s interesting to see the effect of the boom on the quality of life. Nowhere else on this trip have we seen much litter but here it lines the highways. One town even reminds us of Deadhorse up in Prudoe Bay on the shore of the Arctic Ocean. We do pass through a town that is thriving and does not appear to be decimated by the boom, Artesia. It has a delightful downtown.

At Artesia we turn west for roughly eighty miles to Cloudcroft. We head to the National Forest campground and find it closed along with the next 4 campgrounds. Once we find a place to turn around 7 miles down the road we head to town and find the National Forest Visitor Center where we find out these campgrounds open around April 19, but there is plenty of disbursed camping about 10 miles outside of town and that is where we are for the night now.