TEST

Southwest New Mexico

In our travels, we’re often asked, “What’s the favorite place you’ve been?” and our typically comment is, “We haven’t found it yet!” 

Now that doesn’t mean that we haven’t enjoyed the various places we’ve been; we definitely have.  Actually, it’s quite the opposite.   There really hasn’t been a place on our travels that we haven’t enjoyed and while the degree of enjoyment varies from location to location, I believe it’s about finding the “story” in the places we go.  

Back in the day, Steve Hartman of CBS news used to do a segment about everybody having a story.  He would go into a random town, open a phone book, close his eyes and randomly point to a name, then reach out to that person to find out what his/her story was.  Inevitably they had some kind of story.   And we approach our travel with that same mindset. Every place has a story; and this stop in New Mexico was no exception to that.  Lots of stories. 

First of all, the story of our campground.  We stayed at City of Rocks State Parks which is basically out in the middle of nowhere in Faywood, New Mexico, population 33.  The park encompasses about one mile area in the Chihuahuan desert and has an elevation of about 5,200 feet.  The “city” is a geologic formation made up of large, sculptured rock columns, as high as 40 feet and separated by paths or lanes resembling city streets. Supposedly, these rocks were formed about 34.9 million years ago when a very large volcano erupted and over the next million or so years, erosion slowly formed the sculptured columns seen today.  It’s hard to describe, but it’s stunning, peaceful and almost makes you feel like you’re in another world.  Like nothing we have every seen.   

Our friends Deb and Steve had stayed here last year and Tracy remembered it, so luckily, that’s how it made its way to our itinerary.  Don’t think we would have discovered it any other way!! 

The campsites, for the most part, are nestled in the various rock formations, which make each campsite pretty unique.  There is a section by the visitor’s center, not nestled in the rock formations, that has electric, but the rest of the sites don’t have any hookups.  We ended up enjoying our time here, and the uniqueness of the park, so much that we decided to extend our stay and canceled our last leg of our New Mexico journey.  On the flipside, we did run out of things to do, so might have extended our stay a little too long, but there are worse places to hang for a few extra days…and we were with friends, so that made it all that much better. 

Pictures of the park

So, the story of Faywood, where City of Rocks is located:   Faywood, and its 33 residents, also lay claim to something else—a hot springs and what was once a successful resort in the late 1800’s to mid 1900’s.  At one point in the resort’s history, the Chicago White Stockings held their spring training in Faywood, however the spring winds were a tad too strong for spring training, so that didn’t last too long.  And we did partake in a few days of those really strong wind days during our stay, so understand how that could have some impact on baseball!

In 1952, the resort was demolished and became a ghost town and then in the early 90’s, the land was purchased and developed into a hot springs resort again. 

Now, to say that this is a “resort” may be an overstatement, but we did check out one of the private hot spring pools while we were there and it was a nice soak.  I can honestly say I wouldn’t stay there, but since we have been void of and really missing a bathtub--it was a very hot and enjoyable soak.  As for any healing powers, the ankle doesn’t seem any better, but hey, it was worth a shot!!

 

So with a sort of remote location, about equidistance to Deming and Silver City, we employed the hub and spoke methodology of exploration.   It was safe to say our explorations would include a drive, since we were 30 minutes from civilization (aka Deming and Silver City) and 75 miles to Las Cruces, NM, home to major shopping.

Our first place we visited was Silver City, and made a few follow up trips there as well.  Some of the “story” of Silver City is mining—all about mining—originally silver, but today it’s copper.   Silver City is home to one of the largest open air copper mines in the world.  The mine is XXX and XXX and is pretty expansive.  

Silver City also has a quaint downtown, where we enjoyed strolling around and enjoyed a couple of decent meals, with the highlight being Forrest’s Pizza, which was a very unassuming shed that made pizza.  And they didn’t just make any pizza…. they made pizza just like they make in Philadelphia.  That was worthy of two visits.  It was awesome!!   Did I mention the pizza was really really good!!

Picture of waitress on roller skates

Silver City also had some Billy the Kid history; being one of the places he lived early on in his life and think it’s safe to say Silver City is where things went wrong for ol’ Billy!!  Silver City was the home of his first couple jail visit…and subsequent jail escape. 

Deming…..

Another “story” we discovered on a drive throughout the countryside was Georgetown.  First of all, there was a small sign that said “scenic drive” so hey, sounds good to us.  It was about an eight-mile non-paved road that was definitely scenic and eventually led us past a cemetery—Georgetown Cemetery.   This cemetery was basically out in the middle of nowhere.  We strolled around and many of the gravesites, which dated back to the 1800’s and after doing a little research, discovered that Georgetown was once a bustling silver mining town of around 1200 people.  After the price of silver dropped, so did the population and the town, with the exception of the cemetery, disappeared.  We found, what we believed to be a couple of different foundations, but other than that, no other remnants. 

Also, along with the casual explorations of the area, we took three major field trips, and yes, they were definitely trips. 

Our first trip was to Gila Cliff Dwellings, which are basically a series of several caves chiseled in the rocks of the Gila National Forest.  These dwellings were used as temporary shelter for nomadic people prior to the late 1200’s, when people of the Mogollon Culture decided it would be a good place to call home.  Not sure why they thought that, but basically that lasted about 20 years before they moved on.  I’m pretty sure I would have moved on after my first trek to get water, but think they were a whole lot more dedicated and resilient back then…..and probably had a few less options!

The trip, while only 72 or so miles from the campground, took a little over two hours to get there, but was a nice drive through the winding roads of the Gila National Forest.

Pics of the drive   

Our next field trip, also a couple of hour trek, was to the White Sands National Monument and the White Sands Missile Museum.  First—The White Sands National Monument.  Basically, we were driving down the highway and then poof, a bunch of white sand.  Yep,  White Sands Monument.  The area is surrounded by mountains and is about 275 square miles of white sand dunes composed of gypsum crystals. It is the largest gypsum dune field in the world, which is pretty impressive, but after every turn, and dune we expected to see the ocean.  Was just odd to see that much “sand” yet no water anywhere to be had. 

At the visitor’s center, you could either rent or buy sleds so there were lots of kids sliding down the dunes, so that seemed to be the main entertainment.  We had a nice picnic lunch and headed to out next stop, the White Sands Missile Museum, which was located about 15 -20 miles down the road. 

Getting into the museum was almost exciting as the museum (at least for me!!).  The museum is on an active military base, which meant that we had to present our car registration, insurance and driver’s license.  along with getting a background check done and then, they searched the car.  Quite an undertaking. 

We entered the museum; and what do we see?  Pretty much nothing but a stark lobby and after going through a pretty intensive background process, I started to have some doubts….like ….

After walking down a short hallway, we actually entered the museum.  Whew!   This was definitely one of those stops where the guys were truly enjoying themselves and well, Tracy and I were along for the ride.   The museum included various and random items, missiles, and some artwork. 

To me, the cool(er) stuff was outside—the missiles.  It sort of looked like a playground, but definitely wasn’t!  It was packed with all kinds of various missiles, a helicopter and a couple of planes. 

Our last field trip was to Las Cruces.  On Saturday’s (and Wednesday’s), the town hosts a farmer’s market in the downtown area, so we made sure to hit the city on a Saturday.  It’s supposedly the best farmer’s market in New Mexico and top 10 in the US and it did not disappoint.  Lots of food trucks, bakeries, crafters and a few produce stands.  We roamed around and had a breakfast from one of the various food trucks and picked up some local honey. 

After the market, we headed over to Old Mesilla Village, on the outskirts of Las Cruces.  The town, Mesilla, is a very historical area--part of a little boundary dispute between Mexico and the US, and ultimately became part of the US in 1853 with the Gadsden Purchase.  Also, another event occurred there in 1871—a political riot.  Republicans and Democrats met at the plaza after simultaneous political rallies.  Fighting ensued;  people got hurt… Yep, doesn’t sound like we’ve made a whole lot of progress these last 145 years…..  Grrr……

The Village is also home to the courthouse where Billy the Kid was sentenced to death.  He eventually was shot…

After the Village, we headed out to Dripping Springs Natural Area, which surrounded by the Organ Mountains—which are jagged, cool looking mountains.  The area has about four miles of easy hiking trails, which unfortunately we didn’t tackle, but one of the hikes takes you to what was once a resort and also a sanatorium, which once housed people when they contracted tuberculosis.  Was a beautiful area and I’m sure it would have been a really great hike.  Next time. 

Well, that pretty much wraps up our time exploring Southwest New Mexico and glad that we were able to find a “story” in a town of 33 people!  We had a great time hanging and exploring with our friends Lee and Tracy, and unfortunately they are moving on to explore more of New Mexico and we’re heading back to Tucson. 

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