Fat Cottonwood - All Things Alamogordo

We often fail to spend many blog entries on our campgrounds.  Usually this is because we don't think lots of those blog entries would be very interesting to people.  We also regularly take coffee walks in the morning and don't blog about that, and many times, as well, we walk or bicycle around the nearest town and don't always mention it in blogs.

Since we have a chilly (48F) and overcast day today, and this day is devoted to logistics prior to our move on to Fort Stockton, Texas, we decided this might be an appropriate blog topic.  So:  All Things Alamogordo!

Alamogordo, New Mexico sits at elevation 4,336 feet in the southeastern corner of New Mexico.  It has a population of over 30,000.  The name "Alamogordo" means "fat cottonwood" in Spanish and, while there don't seem to be many fat cottonwood trees in this area, nor a river or large stream to support them, we assume that, when the town was settled, there must have been.

This place has seen inhabitants for at least 11,000 years, including the Mescalero Apache, who roamed this area before the Spanish arrived.  The Spanish established a chapel at La Luz, just north of here, in 1719.  The city of Alamogordo itself was founded in June 1898, when the El Paso and Northeastern Railroad was extended here.  The founder's brother apparently named the city after a large grove of cottonwoods he remembered from the Pecos River near here.  Never mind the Pecos River is on the other side of the Sacramento Mountains.

The white sand dunes that now form White Sands National Monument are located about 15 miles west of here.  The monument was created by President Hoover in 1933.  During and after World War II, the military located Holloman Air Force Base here, and then established the White Sands Missile Range, displacing a significant number of farmers and ranchers and earning the unending enmity of people in the area.

While the atomic bomb was developed north of here at Los Alamos, the first actual test of the bomb, at Trinity Site, was just northeast of Alamogordo, on the missile range.  A monument stands at ground zero which can only be visited once a year in April on group trips organized by the Alamogordo Chamber of Commerce with the cooperation of the military administration of the missile range.

There is a small campground located in town, formerly known as the Roadrunner Campground (noted by that name on Google Maps), that was purchased by its current owners, who immediately applied for and obtained membership in Kampgrounds of America ("KOA"), which we often favor when we are looking for campgrounds.  The new KOA sign is quite spiffy --

as is the campground office, which actually dates back many years to a time when the prior owners had been KOA members.  The new owners just had it repainted and spruced up:

The rest of the campground, as the owners will readily tell you, needs a lot of TLC.  The "bones" are good, but the esthetics are somewhat lacking.  Furthermore, it's located in the town itself, in an area that is somewhat industrial, tending toward very modest housing.

However, because the town has very few buildings over two stories tall, we get great views of the Sacramento Mountains to the east --

-- and the San Andres Mountains to the west, on the other side of White Sands NM and the alkali flats of Tularosa Basin.

We even get a great view of Sierra Blanca, with its new gown of fresh white snow from the last few days' precipitation and clouds -- although the view comes with some industrial grit as a side dish:

The center of town is perhaps a mile to the south, and, as we walk down to the town's only coffee shop (a Hardback Cafe in a Hastings book and media store), we get some pretty glimpses of the nearby mountains:

The old "main street" of town has been bypassed to a degree, although perhaps TEN banks are located all in one 6-square block area, which makes us think the town provided tax and other incentives for banks to locate there.

The town has it share of funky little entrepreneur locations:

But, for the most part, it resembles many small towns in the West.  It does boast a campus of Arizona State University, which adds some vibrancy.  The campus is up on the hill overlooking the town and hosts the New Mexico Museum of Space History, which we visited the other day.

From the museum, you can get a wide view of the town and the Tularosa Basin to the west.  Here's a view looking south over the town:

And here's a view looking directly west across the central part of town:

That's just about all there is to Alamogordo.  Just two significant supermarkets:  a Lowe's and the local Walmart.  This gives you an idea of the limited choice in services available locally.  We imagine that the town can't support any more supermarkets because all of the military personnel probably shop at the PX on the air base.

But, what Alamogordo may lack in civic amenities, it more than makes up for in accessibility to a variety of historic and recreational opportunities.  A ski resort is an hour away.  Plenty of hiking is available in nearby Lincoln National Forest.  The missile range, space history museum, White Sands National Monument, and BLM and state park attractions such as Valley of Fire and Three Rivers Petroglyph Site make this a very rewarding place to stay for a week or two.

So we're pleased overall with our stay.  Nevertheless, we're ready to move on in our steady trek Eastward!