The Pitts Stop

 New Mexico – Deming, Silver City

March 16:  Alamogordo, NM to Deming, NM

Cold, cold, cold – 25 degrees when we woke up.  Luckily the pipes and hoses all seem ok and the furnace is working fine.  We left the campground mid-morning and drove through White Sands Missile Range which completely surrounds the White Sands National Monument.  Fortunately, the road was just opened after being closed for a missile test. 

We stopped at the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage museum in Los Cruces for what we thought would be a quick hour.  Boy, we were surprised to find ourselves still there three hours later!  Toured the cow and goat pens where the guide described the differences among the various cattle breeds – Angus, Hereford, etc.  We also found out that New Mexico is a major milk cow dairy farming area and have some of the largest dairy farms in the country.  We watched a cow-milking demonstration (along with about a hundred school kids) and visited with the blacksmith.  We ate a wonderful lunch in their restaurant with scenic views of the mountains.

We drove west to Rockhound State Park where we had a fabulous campsite in the foothills of the Little Florida Mountains with views of the mountains and acres of yellow and gold wildflowers.     We walked a mile or so up the mountain trail that afforded us even more wonderful views of the valley and the city of Deming in the distance.  The trail encompasses the area where jasper, quartz crystals, agate and common opal could be found.  We didn’t know what to look for, so found no gems, but we did get some nice sunset pictures. 

March 17:  Rockhound State Park (Deming), NM to Silver City, NM

 The plan was to get up early and get some sunrise pictures, but slept in until after 7 and missed it.  We drove over to another part of the state park called Silver Canyon.  This is primarily a picnic area, but we were told lots of Persian Ibex mountain goats can often be seen on the cliffs.    We couldn’t find any goats at all, but we spotted a ridge that looked like a nice hiking trail, so we figured we’d just go up to the ridge.  Well, ½ hour later, the trail (actually a cattle trail that eventually disappeared) got so steep we had a tough time keeping our footing in the loose rock.  We kept on going and were finally rewarded with 360 degree views of the mountains and valleys below us.  We tried a different way down to avoid the steep section and ended up walking a lot further because we were separated from where we wanted to be by a giant gully.  Downhill is a lot tougher on the knees than uphill.

We returned to the RV for lunch and then left the campground for Silver City, NM.  Silver City was named after the silver ore that was found in the late 1800s.  It is over a mile high in the mountain foothills and provides access to the Gila Cliff Dwellings and it was also where Billy the Kid spent his childhood.  On the road up, we kept seeing signs about dust storms and open cattle range warnings.  Instead of mowing the grass along the highways, we saw tractors knocking down cactus!  The weather was colder than we would have liked.  We stopped at a new, very nice campground right in town that had good TV reception and wireless internet access right in our RV. 

March 18:  Silver City, NM

We drove the car the 44 miles to Gila Cliff Dwellings, taking over two hours – the road twists and winds through the mountains and the average speed was probably about 20 mph.  The scenery was pretty and we crossed the continental divide, but the temperature was 10 degrees cooler – not happy about this cool weather at all! 

 We hiked up the short, but steep, ½ mile trail to the cliff dwellings.  The ruins are very large and the ranger explained about the Mogollon people and theorized about how the different rooms in the ruins were used.     The views across the canyon from the dwellings were beautiful, but we saw no wildlife.  The ranger told us that on a previous tour, they saw a bear climbing down the rock cliffs across the canyon – we didn’t know bears climbed cliffs!  We ate a picnic lunch, viewed some petroglyphs and then drove the scenic loop over the San Lorenzo Mountains where we detoured to see the ghost town of Kingston. The ghost town was just a couple of old buildings among trailers and new homes – we were expecting the dusty old west town with the tumbling tumbleweeds and were disappointed.        The drive through the mountains and back across the continental divide was fabulous.  There was a viewpoint at the 8600’ pass with views of a canyon with towering rock walls on either side - spectacular.  Returned back to route 52 to Silver City – a very long day.

March 19:  Silver City, NM

Cold and threatening rain, but we took our chances and drove an hour north up to Whitewater Canyon park in the Gila National Forest.  We hiked a mile up to the canyon where they built a catwalk suspended from the cliffsides over the river and a bouncing suspension bridge.  The original catwalk was built to carry water lines through the canyon in the late 1980s.  Whitewater Canyon was a hideout for Butch Cassidy.  Very pretty country with the high canyon walls and rushing water below.  Gas is now at $2.18 a gallon – when we left Summerville, it was $1.77.  We drove around Silver City – a quiet little town with a massive open pit copper mine on the outskirts. 

Next