June 15th was rent day for us at Shady Grove R.V. Park in Alamogordo. It was time to commit to leaving or staying for another month. Alamogordo is in the center of the tan area near the bottom of the New Mexico map. We had been living like tourists on the run during our month stay, and it sure went by quickly. There are still a few things we would like to do in the area, but higher temperatures are encouraging us to head north into higher elevations and cooler temperatures. Alamogordo is at an elevation of 4,350 feet. Using elevation as a guide to a destination choice has been a new factor for us to consider in our search. We considered Santa Fe at 7,000 feet and Taos at 9,800 feet. We quickly learned that cool mountain air in desert country comes at a high price! Santa Fe r.v. parks run close to $700 a month, if you want full hook-ups, wifi, and cable t.v.. Electricity is additional. That is rich for our budget anytime, but especially having just registered the truck and replaced all the tires. We looked at the Taos area and found the r.v. park prices similarly high, so that meant we were looking at increased travel expenses plus high r.v. park rates. We considered bypassing the expensive tourist places and jumping the border into Colorado. Everyplace in Colorado has cool temperatures, right? Wrong! Pueblo, Colorado has temperatures just as high as Alamogordo! We thought we could beat the system by boondocking in the national forest campgrounds. It appears even dry camping (no water, electric., or sewer hook-ups) is $6.00 a day in a national forest campground! That's $180 a month and would be a rough month in our opinion! State park campgrounds are $14 a day with electric as the only amenity! That's $420 a month! There currently are several forest fires in New Mexico and research into some of the state park and national forest campgrounds showed them as closed until further notice due to the fires! If that wasn't enough of a deterrent for staying in a national forest campground, we came across the warning below for Carson National Forest near Taos! We'll pass on forest living for now! I once heard that a grizzly bear is more likely to attack you, but a hungry black bear is more likely to stalk and kill you!
With the ongoing drought, wildlife are becoming more stressed and looking
for easy meals. If you plan on visiting the Carson National Forest, please
read the flyers on how to deal with wildlife. Thank you. |
We decided that maybe we would save on travel expenses and just go up in elevation locally to Ruidoso at 7,000 feet or the Sunspot/Cloudcroft area at 8,663 feet. R.V. Park prices run around $550 a month plus electricity in those locations. We found many r.v. parks in the mountains don't offer cable t.v.. It may be available for an additional price that hasn't been stated. Internet and cell phone signals are iffy in some areas. With our Shady Grove RV Park rent at $245 a month with all the amenities, staying awhile longer started looking good! Once we got over our mini internal tantrums of not being independently wealthy and able to do what we want when we want and for as long as we want, we actually sighed a peaceful sigh of relief at staying put for awhile. Our past experiences of staying in an area longer than we might first choose to do has proven to be a good thing! It makes us delve a little deeper into a community and discover even more exciting things about it! We've discovered that Alamogordo has a great deli, a dog park, and a nice recreation center! Staying for another month will give us time to do a few more things we were regretting we hadn't gotten to do, and will give us time to kick back and do a few home projects.
