New Mexico Road Trip!

With Christina visiting, and the long 4th of July weekend here, we all decided to take a road trip through south-central New Mexico.

We started with a drive to Cloudcroft, complete with stops at the White Sands National Park visitor's center (get park coins for Leah and a sun hat for Catherine), at the Fresnal Creek tunnel view in Lincoln National Forest, a country store to pick up knick knacks and some food, and the Mexican Canyon trestle just below Cloudcroft.

We ate at a great barbecue place in Cloudcroft - we got there about 1130 and the line was already outside. Thankfully, they also have a food truck, which is where we picked up our lunch. From there, we drove north to Ruidoso, the Gatlinburg of the Sacramento mountains. We continued north until we drove down out of the mountains, chased by thunderstorms. We made our way to Valley of Fires, a BLM recreation area technically on the northern edge of White Sands Missile Range. It is an old lava flow where the cacti and other plants are slowly taking over.

It rained a tiny bit on us here - not even a drizzle - but it felt great compared to the mild heat of the desert floor.

Catherine found us a very nice Mexican restaurant in Tularosa, with some fantastic chips and salsa! We continued south towards home, which we were having a good bit of rain when we arrived.

We even had a complete, double rainbow, which was pretty cool.

Happy Independence Day!

Marc