Fulsom, NM – Semi-Ghost Town

After we left the mesa, we came across what I call a semi-ghost town, called Fulsom, New Mexico.  In the 2010 census, the population was 56, down from 75 in 2000. 

The town is named after Frances Fulsom, the fiancée of Grover Cleveland.  She married Cleveland when she was 21 years old, in the White House (the only marriage to take place in the White House), and became the youngest first lady in history.  When you first enter the town, tho, there is a historical marker citing the bravery of another woman of Fulsom – Sarah “Sally” J. Rooke.  Sally was a telephone operator and on the night of August 27, 1908, she received a call that a “wall of water” was rushing down the Dry Cimarron River towards Fulsom.  She stayed at her switchboard that night, warning others and saving countless lives.  She, however, was not as lucky and perished in the flood that night.  Telephone operators from around the country contributed 4,334 dimes to honor her with the memorial.

There are a few sights worth highlighting in this glimpse back at yesterday…..

Wanted Poster

In the window of the old Fulsom Supply Company store, this wanted poster still hangs.  The door is padlocked and the inside is full of debris and items left when the store closed.  Is this wanted poster “real”?  I wish I could say this poster appears to have dated back to the day when Jesse James roamed the West, but truly, it looked a bit too new for that!

Fulsom Hotel

This is the old “sign” for the Fulsom Hotel, painted right on the building!  I love how the tree hovers over the window on the second floor.  I wouldn’t have been surprised if I had seen a ghostly apparition!

Look Into the Past

This is a simple image, but that old chair inside a deserted hotel just made me think about how many people sat in it, and what their lives were like.  I could make up entire stories – did Sally sit on it at one time? – but I’ll spare you!

Front Door

I like the inconsistency between the rough wood and brick front of the hotel and the reflection in the window that almost looks metallic.  The black iron gate is in front of the front door of the hotel and the window, I imagine, looked into or out from the lobby.

Interior Rock Wall

 I like this image because it makes me wonder what the interior rock wall was part of - the lobby, bar, restaurant?  I also like the reflection of the small little 2-lane road that you can see that runs thru the town.

Enjoy!

 



Space Museum - Alamogordo, NM

Another place we visited during our camping weekend was the Space Museum in Alamogordo, NM.  One of the cool things that I didn't get a shot of was Jeff flying the space shuttle simulator - altho the controls were quite sluggish, he did manage to land us safely!  Here are some other cool things we saw there -

Here was an actual space crew capsule from the Apollo space program.  Altho it was fairly decent sized, when I thought about 3 folks being in it for any length of time, it seemed rather small and cramped.  Oh, well - I guess that comfort wasn't really the point!

This piece was interesting.  It's a piece of a German V2 rocket from World War II, that tumbled out of space and landed not far from the museum here in New Mexico!  Altho it is quite beat up, it was cool to be close to something from WWII built by our enemy (at least for that war).

This was a rocket used by the Army.  I just really liked the clean lines and the way it looked against the blue, blue sky.

It was cool to be able to stand this close to one of the rocket boosters from the Gemini rockets.  I really like the pattern of it, and may try manipulating this image into some cool background paper for my art.  I'll bet those engineers didn't even consider that when building this!

 

This is a view of the inside of a Saturn V rocket engine - again, I was able to get really close to it.  I just loved the pattern of this, and once again, this may find its way into my art.  I know, those engineers who developed this are probably rolling over in their graves.....or I'm sending them there!  It's just so cool, tho!

 

Enjoy!

Driving Around Cloudcroft

On one of the days of our camping weekend, we decided to explore up in the Sacramento Mountains, around a town named Cloudcroft. Take a look at the images -

We pulled into a scenic overlook area and I got this shot looking down from about 9,000 feet.  The white band across the image is White Sands National Monument.  It looks so far away, but it was really just a short Jeep ride! 



We also spotted some deer munching on the greenery on the side of the road.  There were actually quite a few, but most ran into the trees as we approached.  This one little guy was more curious than afraid!

One of the things I love about New Mexico is the diversity of views and vegetation.  Love these tall pine trees - and it smelled great, too!

Here was a piece of history - the remainder of a trestle from a train that used to run up the mountains into Cloudcroft.  There's a trail to hike so that you can approach this up close, but we didn't do that this time - next visit we will, tho!

 

Enjoy!