Great staff, really support the observations well,...

Great staff, really support the observations well, training was so smooth, love the nature of the mountain surround, nearly got trampled by an elk one night outside the main building :-D Not sure there's much for casual visitors to see or do, but for astronomers this is a great place to observe/work with. 15 MI from Cloudcroft, with a model solar system along the road (route 6563 of course) to Sunspot, former home of the National Solar Observatory but now run by the New Mexico State University and hopefully some partners. Sunspot is more geared to general public visitors. The gift shop and museum remained open when we were there summer of 2019, and as you can imagine they don't have as many visitors as they would like. There is a small Museum there, showing not only the history of the site but some of the science behind what they do. It's very close to Apache Point, just a little farther down the road -- to the Sun in the Solar System model. There are more interpretive signs in Sunspot, it's altogether a better general public attraction, while APO is simply a working observatory: no gift shop, no museum, no interpretive signs. Maybe eventually those will arrive -- but not too soon!