New Mexico – Roswell, Ruidoso, Alamogordo
March 12: Carlsbad, NM to Roswell, NM to Ruidoso, NM
Drove north to Roswell. Lots of tumbling tumbleweed across the highways. It’s hard to adjust to the desert's daily wide swings in temperature – 30’s at night, very cool in the mornings and then getting to almost 80 in the afternoon with evenings cooling off quickly. We stopped for gas and the attendant showed us where we could park the RV while we toured around Roswell’s alien area. 
Toured the UFO museum – hard to imagine the hysteria that must have swept through here in 
1947 when what was apparently a military weather balloon crashed just outside of town.
After lunch, headed west to Ruidoso up in the mountain ski area (luckily, the unseasonably warm weather held on so we could visit here – the RV doesn’t “do” snow.) Drove through the small town of Lincoln, site of a range “war” and home of Billy the Kid. We decided we would return to explore tomorrow and continued on to the campground in Ruidoso. The campground owners suggested a place where Jack had chicken and dumplings and I had green chili stew, plus we shared a small pizza. By the time we left the restaurant, the 60 degree temperature dropped to the low 40s. Ruidoso is good-sized ski tourist town with lots of shops, condos and traffic. Ruidoso Downs where the quarter horses race is only a few miles away, but it’s not open until May. Skiing continues until April!
March 13: Ruidoso, NM to Alamogordo, NM
Huge wind gusts during the night rocked the whole RV. This morning we drove back to Lincoln and toured the town’s museum and walked the ¼ mile main street with historic buildings, the most notable being the Old Courthouse where Billy the Kid was arrested and held, but escaped by killing his guards.
Lots of interesting stories about the Lincoln County War that was fought between the owners of two general stores in town, with the whole town taking sides. Billy was later killed in a nearby town.
After touring Lincoln, we returned to the RV for an early lunch and headed south to Alamogordo on route 54. The road travels through a broad flat plain with brown grass and cactus, but with mountains on both sides. We saw dirt devils churning alongside the road. It was in the 40s when we left Lincoln in the mountains, and arrived in Alamagordo with temps in the 70s. The campground here is a giant asphalt parking lot and the RVs are very close together, but there are concrete block walls between campsites and the place is very clean and neat. On both sides are mobile home parks that appear to be snow bird communities.
March 14: Alamogordo, NM
We woke early to go to the sand dunes in White Sand Dunes National Park before the high winds forecasted for today turn the dunes into a sandstorm. 
The winds started early, though and were gusting about 30 miles an hour by the time we got to the park. We stopped at the visitor center to view a movie explaining how the gypsum dunes form and that gypsum white sand dunes are very rare. 
The movie also showed how yucca plants just keep growing taller to stay above the dunes and that the cottonwood trees, even if buried beneath the sand, stay alive as long as some of the leaves at the top of the tree are above the sand. 
The road into the sand dunes was a hard-packed sand road and we had to keep reminding ourselves it wasn’t snow out there, but sand! 
The wind was blowing so hard, it was difficult to stand up at times and it was only in the 50s, so it felt quite cold. I put on Jack’s red plastic golf rain suit – which was just a little large for me. 
I tottered around on the dunes in this gigantic red balloon suit being blown around by the wind – we made snow angels and had a great time. 
Near the edge of the dunes, we hiked a one-mile trail called the Big Dune Trail highlighting the almost buried yucca plants and cottonwood trees. We wanted to take the ranger-led hike to Lake Lucero where the crystal beds form that eventually are blown to form the dune fields, but it is only conducted once a month and the next tour is not until March 26 – too long for us to wait.
After lunch, we went to the Space Center Museum in Alamogordo. Lots of exhibits and although some were too technical for our taste, most were excellent. We learned that the space station is visible with the naked eye! Alamogordo is a nice town nestled next to the mountains on the east. Jack spent time looking for information on Eileen Collins from Elmira, the first woman space shuttle commander.
March 15: Alamogordo, NM
Snow! Giant wet flakes didn’t amount to anything other than making the ground wet, but further north in New Mexico, they had lots of snow. 
We planned to leave, but decided to stay put and not risk running into any snow on the pass between Alamogordo and Los Cruces. The TV news showed pictures of northern New Mexico with 2 feet of snow!
While talking on the phone with Dad, wishing him a happy birthday, I looked down and saw the RV bathroom hall flooded with two inches of water! Jack had been filling the tanks by running the toilet and forgot…at least it was clean water, but it took every towel we had to mop it all up. Luckily, there’s a nice laundromat here in the campground. We stopped at the local library to catch up on some weekly magazines and use their computer. The overnight temp went down to 21 degrees – a record! We thought we’d see nice warm weather in southern New Mexico.
