We checked out the historical buildings and the rattlesnake bridge….a foot trail bridge that crosses over the city streets and really does look like a western diamond back. We stopped in for lunch at Le Charro Cafe (an 80 years running local Mexican restaurant that claims to have invented Chimichungas) and had some wonderful tacos and chicken with Mole. Good stuff.

We have arrived at Saguaro National Park in the Sonora Desert. It is really quite different than the Chihuahuan Desert. It has these huge armed cacti, the Saguaro (pronounced sah-wah-roh we found out) and some other new cacti like the chained fruit and the teddy bear cactus. It is very different in appearance and we are enjoying exploring it. We hiked Sunday in the West part of the park and have seen a new cool bird, the Phainopepla and our hike took us past an old mine. They are scattered all around these hills. Sunrises and sunsets have been beautiful. We are planning to go to the East section on Wednesday. In between, there is a highly touted Desert Wildlife Museum we are going to check out.

The wind kicked up and the dust is swirling. We see dirt devils in the distance and some areas had less than 1 mile visibility. We made it to Tucson ok though

The creosote bush is gone and it is flat sparsely covered grassland punctuated with yucca. There are frequent signs for dust storms but today is clear and bright. We can see mountain ranges that are over 60 miles away.

Off in the distance from Silver Spring is the huge copper strip mine. It is listed as a tourist attraction, the longest operating surface mine in the country, but even from afar it looks like a giant scar on the face of the earth. We never got within 10 miles but still drove by the “tailings department” where they are managing the huge piles of dirt they don’t want. I am not sure what their restoration guideline are but it still doesn’t look very natural to me. Anyway, chalk it up to a necessary evil I guess and hope that we have figured out how to get the copper out with the least damage.

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

Indian Springs, a hot spring in Truth or Consciences, NM. Thirty minutes in a private hot spring spa. It was flow through of 100ish water in a pebble floored stone and timber spa. It was crystal clear and wonderfully relaxing. It was a truly new experience. Something I’d recommend.
The homemade ravioli and meatballs were about perfect too. It was a great V’Day.

We have moved on to Leasburg Dam State Park. It is one of a whole string of dams as each area vies to control some portion of the river to support irrigation and municipal water systems. Right now, they are competing over a whole lot of nothing. A long drought has left every lake very low and only a meager flow in the channel. We looked over Caballo Lake SP and it would certainly merit a visit as time allows in the future. I think we have seen about enough of the Chihuahuan Desert and are ready to move on to greener mountains. Relative humidity on tonight’s weather was 3%. That’s dry. We plan to head for the Gila National Forest tomorrow.

A quick stop at the farmers market at Las Cruces. We tried flautas and good ole bratwurst from food court trailers. Both great. We found some home made Gooseberry jam too. It is pretty good but …probably only my choice if one can’t find real berries. Pretty much like other big craft markets with lots of pottery and for some reason, incense. Fun.