1/10/22 – I’m heading Alamogordo,NM and Oliver Lee Memorial State Park. I was able to get a non-electric spot for 2 nights at this park just outside of town. This would be dry camping and so I filled my fresh water tank before breaking camp and hitting the road for the 150 mile drive.
An uneventful 2.5 hours later I arrived and set up camp, the park is located at the base of the dramatic Sacramento Mountains and really makes you feel like you are in the Southwest! The first evenings sunset did not disappoint.
There were 2 places I wanted to visit for sure, of course White Sands was on the list but also Alamogordo is home to the New Mexico Museum of Space History not being one to pass up a good space museum, I stopped by for a visit.
They have a good selection of displays with an emphasis on NM space history and also a great many Star Trek items including a life size transporter, sadly Scotty did not honor my repeated requests to “Beam me up”. Click on the photo for all the pictures.
Alamogordo is a great spot to jump off for White Sands National Park, it is only a short 30 minute drive to the park. If you haven’t experienced this other worldly place it really is worth a visit. The visitor center shows a short film explaining the geology of the region and the origin of the fine gypsum sand that makes up the dunes. It is a great place to start your visit. Being a weekday there were few people in the park and I was able to explore and enjoy the trails pretty much to myself.
If you are so inclined you can purchase saucers at the gift shop and actually sled on the sand just like you can in the snow. I did see a few kids doing this and it looked like fun. There is a 7 or 8 mile scenic loop drive that you can take as well as several trails and access points to the dunes themselves. I enjoyed a hike and did the drive and you can pretty much see the entire park in a half day visit. Click on the picture below for the album.
I decided to make this a short visit to the area, Alamogordo is not a large town at around 30,000 and there isn’t much to do beyond White Sands and the space museum. The one thing that I missed was the Three Rivers Petroglyph site which is only 35 miles from town, but for some reason I thought it was closer to my next stop and I left without visiting. No worries there are more sites to see but sadly not as close as this one was.
One final thought on Alamogordo, I found there was very little T-Mobile data coverage, in spite of seeing 2-3 bars of 5G on my phone and hotspot I could not get any data, not sure why but I suspect with Holloman Air Force base nearby they may be blocking the signals? (allow me to start this conspiracy theory) 👽 I had to resort to visiting Starbucks to use their WiFi for Internet access, so no Netflix for me at camp.
Next stop will be Truth or Consequences, NM. The town formerly known as Hot Springs renamed itself in 1950 after the Truth or Consequences radio show. I cannot resist visiting a town crazy enough to do that!
Hey Its Gregg! 