Reality of Country Rural Living in Winter / Cloudcroft New Mexico / Sacramento Mountains
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ม.ค. 2023
- This winter's been snowy, with weekly snowstorms lately. Between last week's storm and this week's snowstorm, I drove to Las Cruces. This is the start of that day trip. I live half a mile off the highway on county roads. I walk the most hazardous part of the roads before I get in my truck to drive them. Good thing too, as one road was blocked by a fallen tree.
At another point I decide which road to take - the plowed one but in the shade, or the unplowed one. This shows you the reality of rural living in winter if you live on country roads. If you go rural and don't live on county roads, then it's up to you to keep your roads plowed.
I think this winter the snowplow man has done a great job. We've had a lot of snowstorms this winter, which is a blessing. Last winter was dry, with just a couple of good snowstorms. The result was a high fire danger, bone dry spring and summer until the July rains came, with two people dying in a wildfire in Ruidoso, and a number of homes lost there. If these snows keep up, I think our spring will be lovely. Hope so.
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When a church lady asked me to explain to her how I use my washing machine water to water my back yard plants, I filmed it and posted it for her and others to see. That was fun so I did more.
Besides recycling water, making natural fertilizer, and reviews of things I think need reviewing, some of these videos are about gardening or dealing with drought, while others answer someone's question or concern (such as a Next Door neighbor scared of bees, so I filmed myself with bees to help her not be so afraid of them, and a church lady horrified by wasps, so ditto).
Still other videos are ones I want people to know about - El Paso's deadly air pollution, and the beauty of Cloudcroft New Mexico.
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Wonderful ride!
I currently live in Denver. My brother and I are going search for a home in Cloudcroft or Ruidoso later this year. I'm so glad I found your channel so that we can get an idea of what winter is like at that altitude.
Hi Lynn. My late husband and I lived in Denver for a few years. Winters in Ruidoso are mild compared to Denver winters. I remember some winters in Denver when people went off the highway into some ditch or grassy area and froze to death before they were rescued. Just tragic. Tragic. Right in the city, but whiteout conditions, no one saw them until the next morning.
Ruidoso's elevation is 6900 - 7000 feet, 40 miles north of Cloudcroft, which is 2000 feet higher than Ruidoso.
Ruidoso gets snow, but not as much as Cloudcroft, as it is lower elevation. Often when it snows in Cloudcroft, it rains in Ruidoso. Not these recent snowstorms though. Both villages got snow.
Even though both villages are higher in elevation than Denver, Denver has snowier winters since it's further north. So whether you move to Ruidoso or Cloudcroft, the winters here are milder than Denver's.
I enjoy watching a couple who live in the Colorado mountains at 7500 feet (they live in a passive solar earth ship type of home, retired.) This winter they show how much snow they're getting - it's an enormous amount compared to what we've gotten down here.
When you come to look for places to live - Ruidoso and Cloudcroft are totally different experiences. Cloudcroft is teeny tiny and rural. Ruidoso is more than ten times larger and a town. Both villages are popular tourist places. Ruidoso more so as most people want a sense of still being in civilization, which they get in Ruidoso with all the conveniences of town. One never has to leave the Sacramento Mountains when living in Ruidoso, whereas when living in Cloudcroft, leaving the mountain for grocery shopping is a must (not to mention if needing to see a doctor, hospital, vehicle repair - Alamogordo NM is at the base of the mountain with all of that to offer.)
Perhaps Denver's changed since we lived there for a few years so what I say next won't apply, but if it is still the same - there is a much greater sense of community in both Ruidoso and Cloudcroft than in Denver, which seemed not to have any sense of community when we lived there, as most people came from other States. You'll have a strong sense of community down here. Best wishes in finding your new home.
Thank you for all the information. We spend a week in Ruidoso every July or August, so we are very familiar with many things there and we know people that live near Angus. Both places are a wonderful change of pace from Denver. I introduced my brother to Cloudcroft in 2019 and now he is crazy about it! The altitude, growing season, grocery stores, and access to medical care are a few of the things we are considering. Sadly we both like certain things about each place so the decision will not be easy.
Cloudcroft is my preference too, Lynn. But I love things rural, wild and dangerous, far from the crowd and actually enjoy the scenery along Highway 82 when going to the grocery store down in Alamogordo. Some people have a cabin in Cloudcroft and one in Ruidoso, living in Ruidoso in winter and Cloudcroft in summer. The folks who do that don't wish to deal with the colder Cloudcroft winters.
Because Highway 82 had a big landslide of rock block the highway Saturday morning (closed the highway for three days), and I needed to get groceries, I drove to Ruidoso on Monday. I'll put a video together of that drive to show how different Cloudcroft and Ruidoso are in winter (it was 51 degrees in Ruidoso, a little snow in the shade, but none along the streets), whereas there's ice and snow along the lanes in Cloudcroft, obvious snow along the mountain and the temperature was about 30 degrees. You'll see. I'll get to that over the next week or so.
If you choose Cloudcroft, you're hooked with Alamogordo down in the desert for groceries, medical care, etc. I like Alamogordo, it's a nice little desert town. Everyone I've met in Alamogordo when I go there to run errands has been kind. Kindness and friendliness rule in Alamogordo it seems. It's a 45 minute drive for me, one way, so one plans one's trips, to get as much done in a trip as possible. Fifty one miles round trip.
Thankfully I don't have health issues, so have no personal experience with the quality of medical care around here. I did get Covid in Nov 2020, and even that was mild (did not need medical treatment.) I really think that Cloudcroft has some kind of natural healing balm exuding from the forest. I saw the improvement in my cancerous mother when I'd bring her up here to my cabin. Really, Lynn, the transformation in her was amazing. Nothing short of miraculous. Her primary care physician could not believe she was still alive, much less improved, and quizzed me about it at length, wanting to know what clinic I took her to, what medicines did I get (in El Paso there are some people who'll go to Juarez clinics or folk 'docs' for potions - that's not my culture, but as the doctor was accustomed to his patients doing things like that, and he could not account for my mother's amazing improvement, he quizzed me.)
When I told him all I did was take her to my cabin in Cloudcroft and I think there's something healing in the forest air, he balked. However, one of his nurses took me aside and told me she'd seen similar improvement in other patients who had cabins up here.
Her oncologists called her a miracle. It was Cloudcroft. I've done a tiny bit of looking into this and all I've found is Japanese researchers studying similar effects in some forests in Japan. Anyway, it is the biggest reason for why I decided to live up here year round after my mother finally passed on (once we had to return to the city for the winter, my mother's health quickly deteriorated, cancer began growing rapidly again.)
I've heard from a few folks who need medical care and the upshot is a lot of complaints, both for Cloudcroft and for Ruidoso. Mostly about the wait time for an appointment, the lack of choices in physicians, the lack of physicians (not wishing to see a nurse practitioner), no specialists, the need to drive to Las Cruces (100 miles away) for some medical needs, or needing to drive to Albuquerque (four hours away) or to El Paso (two and a half hours away) for some medical needs, the hatred of the Alamogordo hospital (serves Cloudcroft) or the Ruidoso hospital.
As you're used to Denver, you're used to some good doctors and a few good hospitals. When we lived there, my husband worked at the University of Colorado hospital/medical school in Aurora. Our social circle were physicians and medical researchers from there. Denver attracts good health professionals. Twice my husband needed to be hospitalized there, too, and I was pleased with the hospital medical care. I did not have to ride herd on those folks the way I had to ride herd on the idiots I ran across in El Paso's hospitals when I took care of my elderly mother.
So one does have a trade off - the benefits of the mountain air, serenity, peace and wildlife entertainment - with the distance of things like a variety of doctors, quality of doctors, and grocery stores, when one chooses Cloudcroft.
If I had health issues, I would not choose this area of the country to live. I'd have either returned to London's Hampstead neighborhood where we used to live, with the Royal Free hospital right there, (but I didn't return to London, much as I love it, after learning of London's current bad air pollution) or I'd have moved to Boston with the great medical facilities there (I like Boston anyway.)
Ruidoso is good for folks who want all the city conveniences right there. But you will not find the choice of physicians nor quality of medical care in Ruidoso that you have available in Denver.
It's a tough choice to make for anyone who has health issues.
@@DesertRatGardener I saw pics of that landslide right after it happened. That was a big rock that came down.
Old NM saying: southern latitude with high altitude makes for some interesting weather!
What kind of chains do you want?
David, I've got them now. They were delivered yesterday afternoon by Fed Ex. These are not v bar heavy duty chains, but fast to install chains that I hope will work for getting me up and down to the highway when it's icy.