We have been focused on getting settled into our new home, but we're also trying very hard to remember why we moved here: Our first camping trip was a 3 night run to Cloudcroft, NM.

Cloudcroft is about 90 miles east of Las Cruces and about 4500 feet higher than Las Cruces. So you drive out of the Rio Grande river valley, up over the Organ Mountains, across White Sands National Monument, around Alamagordo, and then up into the Sacramento Mountains.

While it was 100 degrees in LC, it was 75 in the pine forest of Cloudcroft.



Lovely afternoon in the woods

Young Bull Elk

Hiking in the woods

Aspen Stand - Just like in the Colorado Rockies

View from the Cloudcroft Senoir Center westward - The light colored strip of land in the valley towards the next mountain range is White Sands National Monument, which runs about 60 miles up the length of the valley

We never could decide what kind of bird this was, but we liked the picture

Same here

Cloudcroft has its own butterfly: Sacramento Mountains Checkerspot Butterfly

Another view across the valley westward from Cloudcroft. At this point, it was raining out over White Sands - but the air is so dry that the rain was evaporating before reaching the ground. 

Mike in the woods - along Pump House Road

The view across the mountains from Pump House

A Steller's Jay

Sleepy Grass Campgound

Good, solid advice

Sunrise over the Organs