Another few days in New Mexico

Sunday we traveled a little over 100 miles to Rockhound State Park located about 14 miles outside of Deming NM, we arrived to find the folks in site 12 were still enjoying it. About an hour later they were out and we were in, Rockhound is a nice park with beautiful views, from our site though the views have wires and construction equipment in it. The bathhouse here are being redone and they have a trailer for those needing the facilities, we always use our own so that isn't an issue for us. The campground is on the western slopes of the Florida Mountains, 24 water & electric sites, 6 non electric sites, a group site and a few day use sites, there a two short hiking trails, unless you want to go out of the campground to bicycle there isn't much in the way of biking. You are allowed to collect rocks, 15 pounds a person, but we won't be taking advantage of that. Deming has numerous rock shops, restaurants and of course the ever present Wallyworld.

Since the park itself doesn't offer much to do our 4 days here should be plenty, not to say we might not back again.We have been treated to some beautiful sunsets, the mountains block our sunrises.

One day we took a ride to City of Rocks State Park, it is about 30 miles north of Deming with nothing around it, we had looked into going there but with only 10 electric sites a handful of which were reservation didn't want take a chance with the holiday weekend. We don't have the ability yet of boondocking, if we did there were many great sites to choose from. City of Rocks has a star observatory and most of their campsites are named after constellations, being out in the middle of nothing I imagine there is some great star gazing there, another place to put on our list.

 


On our walk through City of Rocks we were serenaded by crickets, they were everywhere and then we happened upon a few looking to fight. Seems they all wanted the leg of their fallen comrade.

Dave spotted this little guy, he wasn't happy about being bothered, thankfully no snakes were seen. :)

We spent an enjoyable morning walking around City of Rocks State Park, then headed up to Silver City where we had lunch. We had thought to go up to the Gila Cliff Dwellings but it was another 2 hours up the road, we would have arrived shortly before they closed so we'll save that for another time.

City of Rocks has a desert botanical garden that looks to need some TLC, name signs were gone and no one had tended it for recently.








On the way home we stopped by Spring Canyon which is part of Rockhound State Park, this is a day use area. The road in has a 17% grade so don't plan on bringing your rv in to it. We hike their lover's leap trail, never found the leap but the views were awesome.

Tuesday Dave wanted to hike the mountain behind the campground, I had had enough of high places the day before so he headed out on his own.

Today is our last day here then we head to Tuscon, we will be staying at Justin's Diamond J RV Park outside of the city. We'll be there for a week, $17/night-full hook ups, so no conserving and a long hot shower or two. We've been to Tuscon once before but only had a day there which was way too short, this time we should be able to get a lot of sight seeing in, if anyone has any suggestions of places to visit let us know.

Happy Hump Day!!!

Until next time...