Thursday, September 20 –

We wanted to get to the mountains as a family before it became too cold to go. We headed to the Cloudcroft area of New Mexico. It was a short trip but very enjoyable. We took a tent to sleep in and a few other things for cooking, but traveled pretty light. We just about had the place to ourselves although quite a few people came in Friday night and Saturday as we were leaving.

On the drive over the scenery was so pretty.

 

We were delayed setting up our camp because it began raining about the time we got to Cloudcroft. But we shopped around in town and waited for it to clear. When we finally pulled into this camping spot, we were surprised to see a few elk grazing peacefully.

It didn’t take long for the guys to set up camp. It did take a while to get the campfire going since the wood was wet, but they did it.

You gotta have bacon for breakfast when you’re in the mountains, right?

It was so nice to be in the mountains again. It smelled so good.

 

  

  

 

 

We managed to work in a couple of nice hikes on Friday.

  

 

This old train trestle bridge was at the end of our first hike. It was very impressive and dated back to the late 1800’s.

This scenic view shows the white sands near Alamogordo in the distance.

Besides deer and elk, apparently there were bear roaming about as well judging by the tracks we found.

When we returned to camp, the elk were back. I managed to sneak around and get a few closer shots.

Stockton and I had to make a run into town to pick up something at Allsups. The sky was so pretty we snapped these shots.