City of Rocks State park and Gila national Forest in New Mexico. We are very much enjoying our time here but these places were really set up for tent campers and wilderness hikers.
City of Rocks is a little park, just one square mile. It is centered around a cluster of huge boulders unexpectedly deposited out in the middle of a huge desert valley. When they first created the park, they creatively sited each campsite close among the rocks each in the shade of one of the huge monoliths and only slightly visable as one approaches the park. Really well done and perfectly in tune with the landscape. Then, the RV folks had to be accommodated, yes that means folks like us. The result is a bit of an eyesore, it is a 10 spot lot off to the side of the boulder field. We are very grateful it exists else we could not have enjoyed this park; but, it does detract from the great effort of the first developers. They would surely be disappointed. It is a great stop for anyone and about perfect for tent campers, at least in cooler seasons. Summer might be unbearable for all.

Gila National Forest and Wilderness Area is a huge park. It is over 3 million acres and about 755,000 are designated wilderness so access is limited to hiking or horseback. The original idea of wilderness was to be able to travel 2 weeks by horseback without seeing a trace of man’s presence. That’s the tenter/hikers dream part of it. The area has bear, mule deer, couger, elk, and the Mexican Grey Wolf. We saw deer and we were able to see beautiful areas along the edges as we didn’t overnight on the ground. In the mountains, the smell of towering Ponderosa Pine and Pinon was wonderful after weeks of time in the desert. The Gila Cliff Dwellings and a cool Catwalk Canyon both are along flowing mountain streams with pines, oaks and sycamore. There is snow in the mountains so the stream and breezes are very cool. Both canyons provided for a wonderful walk. The Cliff Dwellings are pretty interesting. It was tough for the folks who lived there to get home but they sure had a wonderful view when they got there. They did a lot of “improvements” to the caves and were there only one generation. It is interesting speculating as to why civilizations move one and abandon what looks like a pretty big investment in sweat equity…The catwalk in the other canyon was built along the same path as a suspended water line build to bring water to mining years ago. It made for some unique views as we went up the canyon