RV Adventures

Today marks four weeks since we left home.  Come tomorrow, we will have spent more time in the RV on this trip than we have spent in our new home!

Double Rainbow after one of the many monsoon storms in Silver City.

Anyway, first thing first…if you recall, we had Jeep problems in Silver City, NM.  Good news, we got our Jeep back after 48 hours!  Yay!  The dealer in Silver City was wonderful about fitting us in and getting a pesky exhaust system sensor replaced (that caused all those error codes).  It was time to go into town and celebrate at a local microbrewery.

Prost! We have wheels again and could go out to dinner.

Now that we had wheels again, we once again set out for the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument.  And this time we made it without incident.  It was only 36 miles away.  But the road to get there…Oh My!  It truly was a 2 hour drive.  I uploaded some dashcam video if you want to see why (don’t feel obligated to watch the whole 3 minutes…I didn’t!).  The road was narrow and had no painted lines.  I’m almost getting carsick just looking at the video!  If you can’t click on the video below, visit https://youtu.be/R1MkasWPvS8.

A vista from the scenic road in the Gila National Forest.

Hummingbirds at the Gila Ranger Station.

I had never seen cliff dwellings before.  People would pay big bucks these day to have homes in the side of a cliff.  They were definitely very interesting.  You had to hike a half a mile up a canyon to get to the caves.

The hike to the cliff dwellings started along this creek.

The moon over the cliff where the caves are.

There were 7 caves and they figure around 40 people lived in them.  To get water, they had to go down to the bottom of the canyon.  The inhabitants raised corn and squash for food.  To do that, they went on top of the mesa or again, down to the bottom of the canyon.  There was a lot of climbing up and down going on!

First view of the cliff dwellings.

Inside the cave. The ceilings are black from the smoke of their fires.

Inside the cave looking out.

The inhabitants certainly had a view!

The cliff dwellings were definitely worth the 2 hour drive to see. But now we had a 2 hour drive back to the campground. We took a different route to switch it up a little, plus the road wasn’t so curvy.  Just before we got back to town, we found a overlook for The Chino Copper Mine.  You have to know by now that Jim can’t resist looking at mines.

Working copper mine.

All the people watching the working copper mine.

It was time to depart Silver City.  Our next destination was only 30 miles south.  We had heard about the City of Rocks State Park on a campground review site.  For $10, we could spend the night and dry camping (no hookups).  We’ve been itching to give these solar panels on the RV a good workout.

Bam! This is your first glimpse of the City of Rocks.

This state park was phenomenal.  A volcano 30 miles to the north erupted many years ago.  Some of the molten lava and ash landed on this flat piece of land.  Over time, the wind and sand have eroded the volcanic rock and this is the result.  The state of New Mexico has put 40 campsites among the rocks.  Too cool!

A private campsite.

Our very private camping spot.

There is a road up to an observation point above the valley.  We drove up there to watch thunderstorms.  The picture below gives you some sense of the scale and size of the rocks…once you pick out our RV.  It’s near the center.

The Blue Flame is down there.

The next morning, we sat on a public bench in our pajamas and watched the sunrise.  You can’t do that everywhere!

Sunrise

Sunrise on the rocks.

After coffee and sunrise, we took a walk.  Jim climbed rocks, I geocached.

It’s hard to get a sense of scale of the size of the rocks.

A squirrel climbed a Yucca plant to get at the fruit!

After our quick sojourn in the rocks, the next destination was Rodeo, New Mexico, where we currently are.  People had told us about Rusty’s RV Ranch. I’m so glad they did! It is in the Chiricahua Desert between two mountain ranges. At 4000 feet elevation, it’s nice and cool.  We have all the windows wide open and a breeze is blowing. The campground is a Dark Sky campground, meaning extra exterior lights are prohibited so you can see the stars at night.  Jim and I spent an enjoyable hour last night in the hot tub looking at the sky.

I rolled over the first morning, looked out the window at my head, and saw the sun rising.

The sunrise got me out of bed.

This area is a mecca for birdwatchers.  Who knew?!?  We took a drive into the Chiricahua Mountains yesterday and we were watching the birders, not the birds.

A short hike in the Chiricahua Mountains resulted in an overlook and this sight.

Us watching birdwatchers watching birds.

We got off the paved roads and explored some of the National Forest roads. Holy cow, you want to talk about a rough and slow drive. It was!  When we bought the Jeep it was primarily because it would be easy to tow behind the Blue Flame.  We didn’t realize how much time we would be spending on rough dirt roads!

Thank goodness it’s not winter!

See the brown sign on the right?  It says “NOT A SEMI TRUCK ROUTE.” No kidding.

There is some sort of plant that you will see hanging in the trees here. I know mistletoe is a parasitic plant. Is this too?  I need to ask about this.

We drove as high as we could to an area called Rustler Park. At 8500 feet, we hoped we would get a good view. Instead, we saw this.  The rangers have been very busy in this area.

We figure this area is going to be torched.

Logs stacked up for the Prescribed Burn. That would be interesting to see.

We’ll spend another couple of days in the town of Rodeo (I wonder why it’s called Rodeo, we haven’t seen any sign of such?).  We are slowly making our way towards my parents in Green Valley, Arizona.  The plan is to be there before the Labor Day weekend hits.  On these big holiday weekends, you want to make sure you have a place to stay well in advance!